Frenchman goes on trial charged with enlisting dozens of men to rape his drugged wife
A French pensioner went on trial Monday accused of recruiting dozens of strangers online to rape his wife after he drugged her into unconsciouness. Fifty other men are also being tried in the city of Avignon for allegedly participating in the abuse.
A French retiree went on trial Monday for allowing scores of strangers to rape his wife after he drugged her, in a case that has horrified the country.
Fifty men, recruited online, are also being tried in the southern city of Avignon alongside the main suspect, a 71-year-old former employee at France's state-owned power utility company EDF.
Police counted a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified.
The men, aged between 26 and 74, are accused of raping the 72-year-old woman who, her lawyers say, was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse that went on for a decade.
Presiding judge Roger Arata announced that all hearings would be public, granting the woman her wish for "complete publicity until the end" of the court case, according to one of her lawyers, Stephane Babonneau.
The trial will nonetheless be "a horrible ordeal" for her, said another of her lawyers, Antoine Camus.
"For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years," he told AFP, adding that his client had "no recollection" of the abuse that she discovered only in 2020.
Police began to investigate the defendant, Dominique P., in September 2020 when he was caught by a security guard secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.
(AFP)
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