French rapist Dominique Pelicot questioned over 1990s cases

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Beatrice Zavarro, lawyer of Dominique Pelicot, speaks to the press ahead of her client's hearing at the judicial centre dedicated to cold cases at the Nanterre courthouse. — Pic by AFP,

PARIS, Jan 31 — Frenchman Dominique Pelicot, convicted in December for organising the rape of his then-wife Gisele Pelicot by dozens of strangers, was questioned yesterday by an investigating magistrate over an attempted rape, as well as a rape and murder, in the 1990s, his lawyer said.

Pelicot, 72, who was sentenced in December to 20 years for aggravated rape, was questioned over a rape and murder in Paris in 1991 and an attempted rape in the Seine-et-Marne region outside the capital in 1999, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro said.

“Mr. Pelicot answered all the questions he was asked, cooperating like he has always done,” Zavarro said afterwards.

She said the investigation, being handled by a unit in the Paris suburb of Nanterre dedicated to “cold cases”, had been underway since October 2022 and Dominique Pelicot had already been interrogated in October 2023.

He has denied involvement in the 1991 rape and murder case but has admitted to the 1999 attempted rape after he was identified by his DNA.

These dates are well before the near decade from 2011 to 2020 during which Pelicot invited dozens of strangers, whom he had recruited online, to the family home in the town of Mazan in southern France to rape his heavily sedated wife Gisele.

The 20-year gap between these crimes has sparked fears that Pelicot could have committed other acts in the interim that have not yet come to light.

His ex-wife Gisele Pelicot has been hailed as a hero for her courage and dignity in the over-three-month trial that ended in December with all 51 defendants, including her former husband and the men he enlisted to rape her, being convicted.

‘Little bottle of ether’

During his trial, Dominique Pelicot confessed to the 1999 attempted rape.

“It was indeed me,” he said. “I took off her T-shirt, her shoes and her trousers but I didn’t do anything.”

But he denied having played a role in the murder and rape of Sophie Narme, a real estate agent killed in Paris in 1991.

“I have nothing to do with that case,” he said, despite the similarities in the two cases, with both the victims young real estate agents aged 23, who were visited by a man under a false name to view an apartment.

The two women were undressed from below in the same way.

A strong smell of ether — an anaesthetic historically used in surgery — was also noted at the crime scene around Sophie Narme, and the substance had been used to attack the young woman in 1999.

“I had a little bottle of ether in the car and a piece of string,” he said of the attempted rape case during his trial.

Asked why he fled, he said: “I had a mental block, thinking it could have been my daughter,” he said.

Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, would have been in her early twenties at the time.

Darian, now 46, believes she was also drugged and raped by Pelicot after seeing pictures of her unconscious body, wearing underwear she did not recognise, were found among the detailed records her father kept of his crimes.

She told the BBC this month that he “should die in prison” as he was “a dangerous man”.

Among the 50 others sentenced in Dec, 14 have appealed.

Dominique Pelicot could thus again appear in court, but as a witness, during an appeals trial later this year in front of a jury, according to a prosecutor in the southern city of Nimes. — AFP