French rapist Dominique Pelicot questioned over 1990s cases
Frenchman Dominique Pelicot, convicted in December for organising the rape of his then wife Gisele Pelicot by dozens of strangers, was being questioned Thursday by an investigating magistrate over an attempted rape, as well as a rape and murder, in the 1990s, his lawyer said.
Pelicot, 72, who was sentenced in December to 20 years for aggravated rape, is being questioned over a rape and murder in Paris in 1991 and an attempted rape in the Seine-et-Marne region outside the capital in 1999, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro said.
She said the investigation, being handled by a unit in the Paris suburb of Nanterre dedicated to "cold cases", had been going on since October 2022 and Dominique Pelicot had already been interrogated in October 2023.
He has denied involvement in the 1991 rape and murder case but has admitted to the 1999 attempted rape after he was identified by his DNA.
These dates are well before the near decade from 2011 to 2020 during which Pelicot invited dozens of strangers, whom he had recruited online, to the family home in the town of Mazan in southern France to rape his heavily sedated wife Gisele.
The 20-year gap between these crimes has sparked fears that Pelicot could have committed other acts in the interim that have not yet come to light.
His ex-wife Gisele Pelicot has been hailed as a hero for her courage and dignity in the over-three-month trial that ended in December with all 51 defendants, including her ex-husband and the men he enlisted to rape her, being convicted.
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