A French appeals court will hear the appeal from only one of the 51 men convicted over the mass rape of Gisele Pelicot orchestrated by her now ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, a judicial source said on Tuesday, June 3.
Dominique Pelicot was convicted in December 2024 of recruiting strangers over almost a decade to sexually abuse and rape the heavily drugged Gisele Pelicot, in a case that made her a global feminist icon after she insisted that the trial be held in public.
50 other men, the strangers he recruited online to carry out the abuse alongside him, were also convicted in a trial that saw no acquittals. Dominique Pelicot did not appeal his term of 20 years jail for aggravated rape. But 17 of the other defendants initially lodged an appeal.
16 of them have withdrawn their appeals over the last months, said a source close to the case, asking not to be named. The final three such moves to withdraw appeals were made on Tuesday. This means that the appeals trial that gets underway in the southern city of Nimes this autumn will only examine the case of Husamettin D., 44, sentenced to nine years in prison at the trial in December. He will only contest the length of his sentence for rape and not his guilt.
The appeals trial, initially scheduled for October 6 to November 21, should therefore be significantly shorter − if it even takes place. Husamettin D. has the right to withdraw his appeal right up until the opening of the hearing. Dominique Pelicot would likely be called as a witness at the appeals trial.
He also faces possible further trials in separate cases after being charged over an attempted rape in 1999 and the rape followed by murder in 1991 in Paris of Sophie Narme, a 23-year-old real estate agent.