Frenchman accused of letting dozens of men rape his drugged wife

A French pensioner went on trial Monday for allowing scores of strangers to rape his wife after he drugged her in a case that has horrified the country.

Fifty men, who he recruited online, are also being tried in the southern city of Avignon alongside the main suspect, a 71-year-old former employee at France's power utility company, EDF.

Police counted a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified.

The men, aged between 26 and 74, are accused of raping the 72-year-old woman who, her lawyers say, was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse, that went on for a decade.

The trial will be "a horrible ordeal" for her, said Antoine Camus, one of her lawyers.

"For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years," he told AFP, adding that his client had "no recollection" of the abuse which she only discovered in 2020.

The woman, who turned up at court supported by her three children, could have opted for a trial behind closed doors, but "that's what her attackers would have wanted", Camus said.

- Some came back six times -

Police began to investigate the defendant Dominique P. in September 2020 when he was caught by a security guard secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre.

Police said they found hundreds of pictures and videos of his wife on his computer, visibly unconscious and mostly in the foetal position.

The images are alleged to show dozens of rapes in the couple's home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people some 33 kilometres (21 miles) from Avignon in Provence.

Investigators also found chats on a site called coco.fr, since shut down by police, in which he recruited strangers to come to their home and have intercourse with his wife.

Dominique P. admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilisers, especially Temesta, an anxiety-reducing drug.

The abuse started in 2011, when the couple was living near Paris, and continued after they moved to Mazan two years later.

The husband took part in the rapes, filmed them and encouraged the other men using degrading language, according to prosecutors.

No money changed hands.

The accused rapists included a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss and a journalist.

Some were single, others married or divorced, and some were family men. Most participated just once, but some took part up to six times.

- Murder probe -

Their defence has been that they simply helped a libertine couple live out its fantasies, but Dominique P. told investigators that all were aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge.

An expert said her state "was closer to a coma than to sleep".

Her husband told prosecutors that only three men left the house quickly after arriving, while all others proceeded to have intercourse with his wife.

Dominique P., who said he was raped by a male nurse when he was nine, is ready to face "his family and his wife", his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro told AFP.

This trial may not be his last. He has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, to which he admitted after DNA testing.

Experts said the man does not appear to be mentally ill, however in documents seen by AFP, they said he had a need to feel "all-powerful" over the female body.

The trial is due to last until December 20.

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© Agence France-Presse

Pakistanis tried for incitement to kill Dutch far-right leader Wilders

Schiphol, Netherlands

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Two Pakistani men stood trial in absentia Monday at a high-security court in the Netherlands over alleged attempts to incite the murder of far-right and anti-Islam Dutch leader Geert Wilders.

Dutch prosecutors have charged 56-year-old religious leader Muhammed Ashraf Jalali for calling on his followers to kill Wilders and promising they would be "rewarded in the afterlife."

Another man, Saad Hussain Rizvi, leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, is suspected of urging followers to kill Wilders after Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif was sentenced for incitement to murder him.

The pair's alleged incitement was done "both during meetings and on social media through video and text messages," said the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.

The trial took place at a highly secure courthouse near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Dutch authorities asked Islamabad for legal assistance to question the suspects and serve summonses to appear in court.

However, no treaty exists with Pakistan for mutual legal assistance and the two men did not appear in the dock.

"This case has had a huge impact on me and my family," said Wilders, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and maroon tie.

"I'm asking this court to send a strong signal... that calling a fatwa in this country is unacceptable," he added.

In September last year, judges sentenced Latif to 12 years behind bars for incitement to murder Wilders after the firebrand lawmaker sought to arrange a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Wilders cancelled the cartoon contest after protests broke out in Pakistan and he was inundated with death threats. He has been under 24-hour state protection since 2004.

The planned competition "caused a lot of unrest within the Muslim community. He (Wilders) received hundreds, if not thousands of death threats," said the judge, who asked not to be identified.

In the Netherlands, the plan to stage the contest was widely criticised as needlessly antagonising Muslims.

But the call to kill Wilders appeared to resonate, as a Pakistani man was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for plotting his assassination in the wake of the cancelled contest.

Wilders said in court he had planned the contest because "it's unacceptable that you are not allowed freedom of speech... in countries where it is permitted by law."

The hardline TLP religious group is known for its massive street protests over blasphemy allegations that can paralyse cities for days.

It brought tens of thousands of people to the streets after Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2020.

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© Agence France-Presse