Monster of Avignon ‘accomplices to rape’ unmasked for the primary time

Pictured for the first time, these men are accused of taking part in the repeated rape of a drugged woman at her husband’s command – in a case which has horrified the world.

Coming from all ages, lifestyles and social standings the seven revealed here appear to otherwise have little in common – but are bonded together by a shared compulsion for sex with a stranger in the most disturbing circumstances.

That stranger was Gisele Pelicot, 71, who was routinely sedated without her knowledge by her depraved husband Dominique at their retirement chalet in Mazan, a quiet village in the shadow of Mont Ventoux, in Provence in Southern France.

The group are motorcycle worker and sometime racer Hugues Malago, 39, farm-worker Andy Rodriguez, 37, odd-job worker Mathieu Dartus, 53, retired marine fire-fighter Jacques Cubeau, supermarket manager turned IT worker Lionel Rodriguez, 44, painter and decorator Husamettin Dogan, 43, and Thierry Parisis, 54, a local businessman.

The seven are part of a wider group of some 50 men who, over a period of a decade, were recruited online by Dominique Pelicot, a retired electrician, now known as ‘The Monster of Avignon’, and invited to his house to rape his wife after she had been rendered unconscious with powerful sedatives.

The seven are all accused of having come to the Pelicots’ retirement chalet by arrangement with Pelicot, also 71, for sex with the drugged victim.

Instructed to leave their cars in a nearby football stadium car park, the alleged accomplices, whose ages range from as young as 23 to as old as 70, would then creep into the tranquil close and into the couple’s home to fulfill their warped urges.

Dominique Pelicot instructed each man to undress completely before entering the bedroom where his wife of 50 years lay unconscious in their matrimonial bed.

Over the past four weeks, the trial in Avignon has heard man after man claim that Pelicot had ‘tricked’ them into taking part in his twisted fantasies of the rape and humiliation of his wife – many of which were filmed.

Pelicot delighted in watching strangers like these men abuse his wife and made home movies and took pictures, totalling 20,000 images, recording the gruesome scenes – a record which was only discovered when he was finally caught in November 2020.

Last week Pelicot stood in the dock and admitted his guilt – and accused all his co-defendants of each having been willing conspirators.

He told the court: ‘I am a rapist – like everyone else in this room.’

Rape trials in France are usually held in private with names of victims and perpetrator kept out of the public domain – to maintain the accuser’s dignity.

But with the courage that has characterised a case which has provoked outrage across France, Gisele Pelicot waived her right to anonymity, making the trial even more high profile.

Their trial has heard how Pelicot gave some of his alleged accomplices fond nick-names and made flippant comments about their appearance, all logged on a computer drive, entitled ‘abuse’.

Among those was ‘Biker’, the pet name he gave to motorcycle racer Hugue Malago.

This week Malago told the court in Avignon how he, like most of his co-accused, met Pelicot on an internet site used by swingers, called coco.fr.

Malago told the court how he had started seeking threesomes with swinging couples in a bid to achieve an adrenaline high, suggesting that this behaviour only started after he was injured in a motorcycle crash in 2012.

Malago’s partner – who left him after he was arrested for aggravated attempted rape – told police Malago had always been very demanding sexually.

Alcoholic Andy Rodriguez, who first met Pelicot in a bar in 2018, was dubbed ‘Micha’.

Rodriguez told the court that he only agreed to go to Pelicot’s house and have sex with his wife because he had ‘nothing else to do on New Year’s Eve’.

He said: ‘I never had any intention of raping Mrs Pelicot.’

Widower Mathieu Dartus, who Pelicot claimed had ‘failed to satisfy his wife’, was nicknamed ‘Gaston’.

This week, the 53-year-old father-of-three maintained he had ‘no recollection’ of the several hours he spent at the Mazan house as he had taken several tablets of ecstasy.

He told the court: ‘I’m not saying that I did not do what is shown in the video. But I have no memory of this lady.’

However, Pelicot dismissed Dartus’ claims of innocence, saying: ‘He knew very well why he was there.’

A retired marine fire-fighter who is the oldest of Madame Pelicot’s abusers is among a small minority of defendants who have pointedly apologised to the courageous grandmother.

Jacques Cubeau, 72, like almost all of the 50 accused men, denies rape.

But last week he turned to her in court and said: ‘Madame, when I discovered what you had suffered, I was devastated.

‘Having participated in all of this destroyed me. I hope that you, your family, will overcome all of this.’

Another defendant, Lionel Rodriguez – no relation to co-defendent Andy, also apologised to Madame Pelicot.

Rodriguez said his wife had left him after news of his involvement in the case broke and he then turned to Mrs Pelicot and said: ‘I never wanted to hurt you but I did, I want to ask for forgiveness.

‘I can imagine your nightmare, it’s horrible to think I am part of this nightmare.

‘My apologies will not change anything, but I wanted to tell you.’

In contrast, Dogan – nicknamed ‘Karim’ by Pelicot in his meticulously-kept records – portrayed himself as a victim.

Dogan, who had stripped naked and put on a condom before he even entered the chalet, broke down in tears of self-pity and insisted he had believed he was taking part in a consensual sex game.

He said: ‘I am a victim of Pelicot.’

Asked whether Madame Pelicot was a victim, he replied: ‘That’s something else – she was his wife. I was caught in a trap.’

Parisis is accused of raping Madame Pelicot at her home in February 2020.

When he was first arrested his partner described him to police as ‘sensitive and respectful’ and said she was horrified to learn of the accusations against him – but it later emerged he had a secret life as a sexually adventurous bisexual that she knew nothing about..

Pelicot’s own daughter, Caroline, has described her mother’s ordeal as ‘the worst sex case for the past 20 years.’

The previous case she was alluding to was the unearthing of the systemic abuse of almost 50 children by a group of adults which included their own parents and grandparents a generation ago in the town of Angers around the turn of the millennium.

But, shocking though that case was, the publicity around the Pelicot case and the horror it has provoked has arguably eclipsed it.

Among the wider group of accused are a paramedic, a prison officer, a soldier and a journalist.