French prosecutors seek up to 15-year terms for co-defendants in Pelicot mass rape trial
Prosecutors have requested sentences of up to 15 years in jail for 49 co-defendants in the trial of Dominique Pelicot, who is accused of drugging his former wife Gisèle for a decade and inviting dozens of men recruited online to rape her.
French prosecutors on Tuesday demanded sentences of up to 15 years for the remaining co-defendants in the trial of a man charged with enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious.
On Monday, prosecutors requested a maximum 20-year jail term for Dominique Pelicot, 71, who has been on trial in the southern city of Avignon since September with 49 other men for organising the repeated rape and sexual abuse of Gisèle Pelicot, now his former wife.
One man is being tried in absentia. As in all previous hearings, Gisèle Pelicot was present in court.
The case has sparked horror, protests and a debate about male violence in France, with tens of thousands of protesters staging demonstrations across the country on Saturday against violence targeting women.
The decade-long abuse of Gisèle Pelicot by Dominique Pelicot was only uncovered when he was arrested for a separate offence of filming up women's skirts, leading investigators to discover his meticulously-kept records of the visitors to the family home in the town Mazan.
Prosecutors since Monday have outlined their sentencing demands for the defendants who responded to Pelicot's invitation, men aged between 26 and 74, most of whom come from ordinary professions ranging from the fire brigade to the media.
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