A court in southern France has increased by a year the jail term of the only man who challenged his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot.
The 72-year-old retired grandmother was drugged unconscious by her then-husband Dominique for over a decade and raped by dozens of men he recruited on the internet.
Husamettin Dogan, 44, had argued he was innocent, despite graphic video footage shown in court of him penetrating a motionless Gisèle Pelicot.
But the court of appeal in Nîmes rejected his argument and extended his original nine-year jail term to 10 years. He was convicted of aggravated rape last December, during a trial in which 50 other men were convicted.
Prosecutors had asked the court to impose a 12-year term on Dogan, who said he himself had been a victim, “trapped” by Dominique Pelicot.
Police were able to track down the men who raped Gisèle because of the videos that Dominique Pelicot filmed during the rapes.
Of the 51 men handed jail terms, 17 initially lodged appeals only to withdraw them soon after.
Husamettin Dogan – a Turkish-born married father – was the only one who decided to take his appeal to court.
Like many of the other men convicted last December, Dogan’s defence was that he could not be guilty of raping Gisèle because he did not realise she had been drugged by her husband against her will.
Proceedings in Nîmes were effectively a retrial but, unlike the initial trial last December, this case was judged by a jury made up of nine members of the public and three professional judges.
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