Lone man fighting Gisèle Pelicot rape conviction loses appeal as jury adds to original sentence

NÎMES, France (CN) — Husamettin Dogan, one of the 51 men convicted of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot, will spend 10 years behind bars after a French appeals court upheld his conviction Thursday.

In December 2024, Dogan was convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to nine years in prison. The jury extended that by one year.

After the verdict was read, crowds chanted outside of the courthouse in support of Gisèle Pelicot. Cidalia de Freitas, a local resident, had watched the hearings from another room in the building with her 15-year-old granddaughter, Lili. Although they wish Dogan had been given a harsher sentence, they were relieved that he wasn’t handed less than the original.

“She has such incredible courage,” Lili told Courthouse News. “It’s a good thing that all of these people are here to support her — and it’s amazing that she keeps her head held high.”

Dogan’s case was part of a much bigger story — he was one of dozens of men found guilty of sexually assaulting Pelicot while she was drugged and unconscious. The assaults were orchestrated by her ex-partner of 50 years, Dominique Pelicot.

Dogan was the only man to appeal the verdict after 16 others dropped their cases.

In 2010, after moving from Paris to Mazan — a town of 6,000 inhabitants in southern France — Dominique Pelicot began recruiting strangers from the internet to come into the couple’s bedroom and assault his ex-wife. He found them on coco.fr, a site that has since been taken down, on a channel called “without her knowledge.” The channel contained lewd photos of women who were seemingly unaware of their photos being taken.

Dominique Pelicot would slip Temesta, a tranquilizer in the benzo family, into his then-wife’s glass of wine or mashed potatoes. The pills rendered her into a state akin to comatose. The men coming into their home were given clear instructions not to smoke beforehand, to be quiet and to wash their hands with warm water — in short, to minimize the risk that she would wake up. This went on for 10 years.

But in 2020, when Dominique Pelicot was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket, he led investigators to his hard drive. It contained thousands of photos and videos of his ex-wife being assaulted. This was the critical evidence that allowed law enforcement to identify 50 men, and bring them to trial with something that is so rare in sexual assault cases: proof.

During the trial from Sept. to Dec. 2024, men were sorted into groups as the court heard a rotation of testimony from them, their wives, their sisters and their mothers. Psychologists delivered analysis. Almost all denied responsibility despite video evidence. At the end of a grueling four months, every man involved was convicted of sexual assault.

Dogan likely hoped that separating himself from the pack would work in his favor. The appeal, which began Monday, magnified his particular case. The court learned that after 10 months of reflection, he did not believe he was in the wrong.

The jury was made of nine civilians — five men, four women — and three magistrates. They sat at the front of the room surrounding its president, Christian Pasta. One civilian jurist — a gray-haired man, who always wore a crisp button-down shirt and suit jacket — seemed constantly to be on the brink of tears, with tensed eyebrows and a pouting mouth.

For four days, the court heard grueling accounts from police investigators, lawyers, psychologists, Gisèle Pelicot, Dominique Pelicot and Dogan himself. Their accounts revealed a portrait of denial.

On Wednesday morning, the court played 14 videos of Dogan assaulting Gisèle Pelicot in 2019. She was sprawled out on the bed, dressed in a white garter belt and wearing rainbow sandals. The footage showed Dogan penetrating her vaginally and orally while she snored.

At one point, he motioned to Dominique Pelicot to move her leg so he could get a better angle. In another video, when she moved slightly, Dogan quickly jumped back and took his hands off her; Pelicot’s lawyers argued this proves that he was scared of waking her up.

Immediately after the videos played in court,  Dogan said “I didn’t commit a rape,” adding that he has the utmost respect for Gisèle Pelicot, which prompted her jaw to drop. Dogan added that he is a victim, trapped by Dominique Pelicot into what he thought was a sex game. He sat slouched in his chair, leaning on his cane, staring ahead. He never turned around to look Gisèle Pelicot in the eyes. The only time he seemed to raise his head was to watch the videos.

“These were not sex scenes — they were rape scenes,” Gisèle Pelicot said in a raised voice on Wednesday, a few hours after Dogan testified. “You call yourself a victim — a victim of what? The only victim in this room is me. … You are not a victim of Mr. Pelicot; take responsibility for your actions and stop hiding behind your cowardice."

On Tuesday, Daouia Boumediene, the police officer who interviewed Dogan in jail, became so frustrated describing her experience that she kept taking deep breaths and asking to restart. She said that in response to questions, his response wouldn’t be, ‘I didn’t do it,’ but always, “I don’t know,” shrugging.

She raised her arms, repeating, “Did she consent? ‘I don’t know!’ Did you commit a rape? ‘I don’t know!’ Do you feel guilty? ‘I don’t know!’” referencing her conversation with Dogan.

Gisèle Pelicot decided to wave her right to anonymity and make the trial public, driven by her impetus to shift blame from the rape victims to their perpetrators. She brought questions of sexual assault, consent and the judicial challenges of rape cases to center stage in France and internationally. Pelicot has been lauded as a hero.

In both Avignon and Nîmes, her arrival in court was always preluded by the sound of roaring applause. One woman traveled across the Atlantic just to catch a glimpse of her in December 2024.

On Tuesday, people organized outside of the Nîmes appeals court to wait for her exit, chanting her name as she was escorted away by police. “Merci Gisèle!” one woman cried, following her from a distance. Another woman wiped away her tears with a tissue, smiling, as she watched her go.

“It was never a question of seeking revenge for a man’s head; for Gisèle Pelicot, it was never a question of becoming an icon,” her lawyer Stéphane Barbarreau said. “It was the defense that criticized her for this solely because she decided to exercise her rights against her rapists.”

Earlier that day, she expressed both exasperation and hope.

“I feel like I’ve reached the end of this ordeal that lasted five years,” Pelicot said on Wednesday. “I hope I never return to a courtroom in my life. … The damage is done. I’m going to have to rebuild myself from this ruin. … I’m on the right track.”

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