London:
The daughter of Dominique Pelicot, the Frenchman found guilty of drugging his ex-wife so dozens of strangers could rape her, said in comments released Saturday that her father “should die in prison”.
In her first television interview since Pelicot was jailed for 20 years last month following a trial that horrified France, Caroline Darian told the BBC her father “was always a sexual pervert”.
“He should die in prison, he is a dangerous man,” said Darian in “Pelicot Trial: The Daughter’s Story,” which the British broadcaster will air on Monday.
Pelicot, 72, was convicted of drugging and raping Gisele Pelicot and soliciting dozens of men to do the same for more than a decade.
Some 50 co-defendants were also found guilty and handed various sentences of between three and 15 years following a three-month public trial in the southern French city of Avignon.
Gisele Pelicot waived her right to a closed trial and was hailed as a hero for her courage and dignity.
“There’s no way you can wake up one morning and say, ‘Okay, I’m gonna drug my wife,'” said Darian.
“So I think there are two Dominiques co-existing in him. He decided to choose the dark side.”
She added: “I don’t know if he is a monster, but he perfectly knew what he did, he’s not sick. He did everything consciously.”
Darian herself believes she was drugged and raped by Pelicot, after pictures of her naked and unconscious body were found among the detailed records her father kept of his crimes.
Pelicot denied during the trial that he had ever abused her as the two clashed in the courtroom.
“He’s always lying,” Darian told the BBC.
“I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse, but I don’t have any evidence.”
Darian added that she now sees her father as only “a stranger”.
“I look straight to the criminal, to the sexual criminal he is,” she said.
The release of the interview comes as Darian will narrate a TV documentary on the use of drugs to enable rape and sexual abuse.
Slated for broadcast by France 2 on January 21, the 90-minute film is set to include testimony from six other victims raped after being drugged unwittingly.
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