Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot and invited dozens of strangers to rape her over almost a decade, has told a court that a man who is appealing against his rape conviction knew she was sedated and came to their home deliberately to abuse her.
Husamettin Dogan, 44, a married father, is seeking to overturn his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious in her own bed in June 2019. Dogan is being tried on appeal in Nîmes in southern France.
Pelicot said he met Dogan, an unemployed builder, on a chatroom called "against her knowledge" and told him clearly that he drugged his then wife and was seeking men to come to rape her.
"He had that information from the start," Pelicot said, adding that he told Dogan by phone: "I'm looking for someone to abuse my wife after I've put her to sleep without her knowledge." Pelicot said he had admitted drugging his wife, raping her himself and inviting men to rape her. "They all knew, they all came with the same intention," he said. "I always said she was sedated."
Pelicot, a 73-year-old former electrician and estate agent, is one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence after crushing sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his then wife's food and inviting dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious in their bedroom in the Provence village of Mazan between 2011 and 2020.
For Tuesday's hearing he was transported from his high-security prison in southern France, where he is in solitary confinement, to the Nîmes appeals court to give evidence as a witness in a secure witness box, flanked by four police officers.
Gisèle Pelicot, 72, who became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year, sat calmly in court with her youngest son, Florian.
Dogan, 44, was one of 51 men convicted. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Gisèle Pelicot. He is the only man to contest his conviction, telling the appeal trial: "I never intended to rape that lady."
Dominique Pelicot told the court he had given Dogan specific instructions because Gisèle Pelicot was drugged and was not to be woken. "I said precisely on the phone there was to be no tobacco, no scent, he was to wash his hands, no violence, it would be filmed. All these things left him in no doubt of her state. He had to get undressed at the entrance to the kitchen on the patio because if there was a problem, I didn't want him to stay," he said.
He said Dogan, who had driven about an hour from another village after telling his wife he was going out, arrived around midnight. Pelicot said he at first got lost and he went out on foot to guide him to the house.
Asked if Dogan was upset to see Gisèle Pelicot lying unconscious on her bed, Dominique Pelicot replied: "No, it suited him."
He said there was a camera on a tripod in the room, so there would have been no doubt the rape would be filmed. He said Dogan stayed for about two hours. He said Dogan even asked for his help in the rapes that night. "He asked me to lift my wife's leg and wanted to put her head in a certain position because she couldn't do it," Pelicot said.
He said Dogan "took pleasure" in the situation.
Asked about Dogan's assertion that Pelicot told him it was a game, he replied: "No, I never said that."
Pelicot said of Dogan’s appeal: “I think it is indecent.”