‘It’s you and me against the whole world’

How to plead for Dominique Pelicot? What can you say in defense of a man who admitted to having both raped and arranged for other men to rape his wife, after drugging her, some 200 times over 10 years? With what words could Béatrice Zavarro conclude, on Wednesday, November 27, before the Vaucluse criminal court in southern France, this trial in which she “became, in spite of herself, the devil’s advocate?”

Zavarro wanted to deliver her closing arguments last – the order of pleadings generally follows that of the sentences requested, from the lowest to the highest. But her client’s position as the main defendant, the keystone of the case, and the opposition of her defense colleagues, who had no desire to let her speak last, decided otherwise. There will be a total of 35 defense lawyers taking the floor between now and December 13, and Zavarro ended up being the first to plead on the birthday of Dominique Pelicot (he turned 72), by whose side she spent the whole trial in “extreme solitude.” “It’s you and me against the whole world,” she began.

How to plead Dominique Pelicot’s case? How could she object to the 20-year sentence requested the day before by prosecutors? A sentence he knows – as he himself said – he cannot escape. Zavarro barely ventured a few words, only one sentence, suggesting that the court, in its verdict, might “perhaps stray a little from what the prosecution has requested.” This was not the point.

Family dynamic

Zavarro was often the third voice at the hearing, behind the plaintiffs and the prosecutors, to accuse the co-defendants who were trying to deflect responsibility onto her client. Almost less involved in defending her own than in accusing others – one annoyed colleague at one point referred to her as “Madame Prosecutor.”

But Wednesday was not about an encore performance: Zavarro just took a few minutes to dismiss the arguments that had been heard over and over again. That of manipulation, which she believed wasn’t necessary to attract all those men to the Pelicot house in the small village of Mazan: “Isn’t the truth: ‘I’m looking for a booty call and I’m not thinking?'” Dominique Pelicot’s alleged hold over the 50 others: “Was he violent? No. Was he threatening? No. Was the bedroom door locked? No. Was he responsible for everyone’s state of mind? No.” That wasn’t the point either.

Zavarro stood up on Wednesday to give her client back some humanity. “You’re not born a pervert, you become one,” she said, repeating her client’s own words from his first courtroom appearance. So there was “a first Dominique,” which she set out to bring back to life, in her usual calm, no-nonsense tone. Rehumanizing without condoning or offending: the delicate balancing act lasted just over an hour.

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