By Marc Leras
AVIGNON, France (Reuters) -A French prosecutor requested on Monday for the utmost 20-year jail sentence for Dominique Pelicot, who organised the mass rape of his spouse for practically a decade, knocking her unconscious with medication and sharing footage and video of the rapes.
Pelicot, 71, has admitted the costs in a trial that attracted worldwide consideration and become an examination of the pervasiveness of sexual violence in France and past.
“The maximum sentence is 20 years, which is a lot… but at the same time … too little in view of the seriousness of the acts that were committed and repeated,” public prosecutor Laure Chabaud advised the courtroom.
Many of the 50 different males on trial have mentioned they didn’t realise they have been raping Gisele Pelicot, didn’t intend to rape her or put all of the blame on her then-husband, who they mentioned had manipulated them.
The prosecutors will over the following two days say what sentence they search in opposition to every of them. The verdicts and sentences are anticipated round Dec. 20.
Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer Beatrice Zavarro advised reporters it was not a shock that prosecutors had sought the longest sentence doable.
Gisele Pelicot, additionally 71, might have demanded the trial be stored behind closed doorways, however as an alternative requested for it’s held in public, saying she hoped it might assist different ladies converse up and present that victims don’t have anything to be ashamed of.
Video recorded by her husband and proven in courtroom over the previous weeks has repeatedly featured her immobile, generally loud night breathing, whereas the accused, together with her husband, abused her.