French prosecutors seek maximum 20-year sentence for man in mass rape case
Al Jazeera
Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife and invited dozens of strangers to their home to rape her over a nine-year period.
Prosecutors in France have demanded the maximum 20-year prison sentence for a man who organised the mass rape of his then-wife for almost a decade.
Dominique Pelicot knocked his wife Gisele Pelicot unconscious with drugs and invited dozens of strangers to abuse her in their family homes in Paris and the southern town of Mazan between 2011 and 2020.
The 71-year-old admitted to all charges against him in a trial that has scandalised France and drawn worldwide attention to the issue of sexual violence.
Forty-nine other men have also been put on trial for participating in the abuse. Prosecutors are expected to announce what sentences they will seek against the co-accused over the next two days.
Prosecutors have rejected arguments made by many of the men, aged between 21 and 68 at the time of the assaults, that they believed they were participating in a consensual fantasy or were not in their right mind.
