Il Messaggiere - Court limits screenings of videos in France mass rape case

Presiding judge Roger Arata denied a request by the prosecutor in the trial of the former husband of Gisele Pelicot, and 49 other men, charged with having raped her when she was drugged.

On Friday, prosecutor Jean-Francois Mayer had asked the court to show the thousands of pictures and videos filmed and meticulously archived by Dominique Pelicot.

"Without this evidence there would have been no trial," he said. "Mrs Pelicot remembers nothing. But even if she had remembered anything, it would have been discussed and contested."

Judge Arata ruled that ruled the videos could be shown at the request of the prosecution or defence -- but not as a matter of course.

"Considering that the images are indecent and shocking...," he said, the footage would only be shown to those actively taking part in the trial.

Friday's ruling came a day after a number of photos and videos were screened at the trial in the absence of the public but in the presence of journalists.

They showed Dominique Pelicot and a co-accused, identified only as Jacques C., performing sexual acts on Gisele Pelicot who was visibly unconscious.

- 'Have the courage' -

"We must not shy away from coming face to face with rape," said Stephane Babonneau, one of Gisele Pelicot's lawyers.

He reminded the court that it was Pelicot who had argued for the trial to be held in public and she had herself decided "from the outset that she would watch these videos".

Babonneau argued that "this is the trial with the potential to change society". But for society to change "it must have the courage to face what rape actually is".

The trial was atypical in that it has offered the possibility to show "a precise and real representation of rape, and not just a description in a police report", he added.

Gisele Pelicot's legal team had backed the prosecutor's request.

So too had the lawyers for Dominique Pelicot, who has admitted drugging Gisele Pelicot into unconsciousness and inviting strangers to rape her.

But several lawyers for the other defendants opposed it, saying descriptions of the video content was sufficient.

"We have abject and unbearable images," Olivier Lantelme, lawyer for one of the defendants, told AFP outside the court. "Do we need to see these images to judge properly?"

The case only came to light after police arrested Dominique Pelicot him for an unrelated event -- filming up the skirts of women in a shopping centre.

Officers seized his computer and found a huge archive of videos and photos of his unconscious wife being raped.

- Mayor under pressure -

The trial has horrified France, partly because 71-year-old Dominique Pelicot's co-defendants include apparently ordinary men from such as a fireman, a nurse and a journalist, many of them with families.

Forty-nine co-defendants are accused of raping or attempting to rape Gisele Pelicot, and one is accused of having imitated Dominique Pelicot to sexually assault his own wife.

The mayor of the southern French town that was the scene of the assaults on Friday apologised for remarks he made about the case that provoked widespread anger.

Louis Bonnet, 74, mayor of Mazan, told broadcaster BBC in an interview that "after all, no one died" about the mass rape.

"It could have been far more serious," Bonnet told the BBC. "There were no kids involved. No women were killed."

Bonnet's remark caused a storm of indignation on social media in France and beyond, and on Friday he responded in a statement posted on Facebook.

"People say I minimised the serious nature of the abject crimes of which the defendants are accused.

"I understand that people are shocked by these remarks and I am truly sorry."

Mazan and its 6,000 residents had been under "constant media pressure" since the start of the mass rape trial this month, he said.

Cecile Paulin, the founder of an association aiding families, agreed.

"Mazan is really in the spotlight," she told AFP. 3That feels very strange, because we're not used to that."

Another resident, Christiane Sturbois, said she was both "surprised and disgusted" by the events coming to light during the trial.

"We've been saying they've got the wrong village. This can't have been going on here," she said.

"I really want people to understand that Mazan is not a village of rapists. It's a beautiful village, and people are happy here."

A.Goretti--IM