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A man was declared guilty on retrial of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was drugged unconscious by her husband – and was given his incarceration period increased to 10 years.

Retrial Proceedings

The defendant, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his first conviction last year, faced a appeal hearing this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, joined by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her bedroom in Provence in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that the accused, a married father, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform named “without her knowledge”, where the husband was looking for men to enter his residence to rape his wife once he had sedated her into a deep sleep.

“We hope the court will affirm that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not delegated,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is obtained personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”

Case History

The ex-husband, one of the worst sexual predators in modern French history, was handed a sentence to 20 years in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and bringing in multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a period of many years of their union.

Numerous other individuals were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and Dogan was the single defendant to contest his conviction. He was first handed a term to 9 years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to ten years.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

The defendant had initially sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then traveled an hour from his town in the region to assault the victim, after notifying his wife he was stepping out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from isolation in prison to temporarily testify at the retrial, stated to the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “drugged” and he communicated to men by phone: “I seek someone to assault my wife after I’ve sedated her without her knowledge.”

The courtroom became a key topic for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to claim he was blameless and had not engaged in violation, contending that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the room, his conduct had been justifiable.

The jury in the higher court was presented with video evidence of the victim's unconscious figure, sedated and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation on several occasions over a timeframe of what police said was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by suffocation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant informed the court the recordings were simply “intimate moments” and denied it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He told the court: “I never raped.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him to the home, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was deceived by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” the accused stated to the court. “I proceeded because he persuaded me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I did not intend to hurt that individual.”

Survivor's Statement

The victim, who was supported upon exiting the courtroom each day by onlookers present to support her, said to Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you acknowledge you violated me? It is illegal to rape an unconscious woman. How could I have give you agreement? Never.”

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

The prosecutor, turning to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's unwillingness to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. The public is perhaps in the process of that, possibly driven by the public consciousness brought by the exposure of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a culture of consent.”

Sie said to the defendant: “As long as you reject it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete disturbing cultural framework that you are upholding.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a building manager. The evidence indicated that his father was abusive and that the defendant began using drugs at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by authorities for drug trafficking and his parent forced him to leave the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his early 20s and had worked as a construction worker but had faced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had regular intimate relations beyond their marriage. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. The defendant had told a evaluator that once a year he looked for transactional encounters on his birthday. His attorneys told the court he had a medical condition resulting from the stress of the first trial.