Seventeen men convicted in the Pelicot mass rape trial have appealed the verdict, according to the prosecutor’s office in the French city of Avignon.
All 51 men on trial were found guilty of rape or sexual assault when the trial concluded earlier this month.
Pelicot organized for more than 50 men to visit his house in the southern French village of Mazan and rape his then-wife Gisèle Pelicot – who he habitually drugged with a sedative – over a period spanning nearly 10 years.
The monthslong, landmark trial shocked France and international observers and forced the country to confront a culture where pervasive misogyny and systemic sexual assault remain rife.
Monday marks the last day that the 51 defendants can file appeals, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Pelicot, who received a 20-year sentence – the maximum sentence allowed in France for aggravated rape – will not be appealing the verdict, his lawyer Béatrice Zavarro said Monday.
Speaking to French media, Zavarro said that her client felt an appeal would “subject (Gisele) to what she rightly called ‘an ordeal.’”
“Today he considers that the judicial page must be turned and that we must consider this chapter closed,” Zavarro added.
Fourteen of Pelicot’s co-defendants, as well as Pelicot himself, pleaded guilty to rape at the trial. Others denied the charges against them and said they thought that a husband’s consent sufficed. One of those on trial was convicted of the attempted and aggravated rape of his own wife, rather than Gisèle, having copied Pelicot’s methods.
The men were handed sentences of between three and 15 years, with many of them receiving shorter sentences than prosecutors sought – including a few who walked free with suspended sentences after the verdict on December 19.
Gisèle Pelicot has been praised for her courage throughout the case. She waived her anonymity to make the trial public, saying that she hoped it would help other women speak up and show other victims of sexual assault and rape that they have nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaking at the trial’s conclusion outside the courtoom in Avignon, she underscored her solidarity with other sexual assault survivors.
“I am thinking of all the unrecognized victims of stories, which often unfold in the shadows. I want you to know we share the same fight,” she said.
Towards the beginning of the trial, Gisèle Pelicot questioned her rapists’ actions.
“Rape is rape,” she said in court in November. “When you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to react… why did you not leave immediately to report it to the police?”
