Giselle Bellico took her stand Wednesday, addressing a packed courtroom that included her ex-husband and some of the 50 other men on trial accused of raping her at her ex-husband’s behest.
French media reported that for the first time since the beginning of the trial, she spoke about her husband’s “priceless” betrayal, and expressed her sympathy for the wives, mothers and sisters of his fifty defendants.
“I always wanted to pull you toward the light,” she said, addressing her ex-husband, Dominic Bellico. “You have chosen the depths of the human soul.”
Giselle Bellicot, 71, became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France after she waived her right to anonymity and asked for the trial to be made public, insisting that blame be shifted from the victim to the perpetrators.
Demonstration in support of Giselle Bellico and all rape victims on September 14, 2024.
Alan Obaidin / Abaca Press
The trial covers a 10-year period, from 2010 to 2020, during which her ex-husband is accused of seducing and inviting dozens of strangers to rape his drugged and unconscious wife. The assaults were meticulously documented in thousands of videos and photos, which were found on his computer and phone when investigators went searching after he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a store.
Dominic Bellico previously admitted inviting men, many of whom he found online, to his home to rape his wife.
“Today I maintain that I am a rapist, along with the other men here,” Dominic Bellico testified last month. “They knew everything. They couldn’t say otherwise.”
During an earlier interrogation, he told investigators that men invited to the couple’s home must follow certain rules — they cannot talk loudly, they must undress in the kitchen, and they cannot wear perfume or smell of tobacco.
He said they sometimes had to wait up to an hour and a half in a nearby parking lot for the medication to take full effect and knock his wife unconscious.
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On Wednesday, Giselle Bellico told other rape victims: “It’s not for us to be ashamed, it’s for them.”
“I want all women who have been raped to say: ‘Madame Belico did it, and I can do it too.’ “I don’t want them to feel ashamed anymore,” she said, referring to her request for a public trial and for videos of the alleged rapes to be shown in court.
Gisèle Bellico (centre), flanked by her lawyers Antoine Camus (left) and Stephane Babonneau (second from left), leaves court at the Avignon court after attending the trial of her former partner Dominique Bellico, who is accused of drugging her for nearly 10 years and inviting strangers to rape her in their home in Mazan. She A small town in the south of France, in Avignon, on October 23, 2024.
Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images
The shocking and unprecedented trial reveals how pornography, chat rooms, and men’s disdain for consent or their hazy understanding of it fuel rape culture. The horror lies not only in the fact that Dominic Bellico, in his own words, arranged for the men to rape his wife, but in the fact that he had no difficulty finding dozens of them to participate.
Among nearly two dozen defendants who testified during the first seven weeks of the trial, Ahmed T. – The full last names of French defendants are generally withheld until conviction. The plumber, who is married with three children and five grandchildren, said he wasn’t particularly bothered by Bellicott’s lack of action when he visited her and her ex-husband’s home in the small town of Mazan in Provence in 2019.
He said it reminded him of porn he had watched that depicted women “pretending to be asleep and not interacting.”
On Wednesday, Bellicott spoke about the various testimonies provided by family members of the accused, who described the accused as “exceptional men.”
“This is like the one I had at home,” she told the courtroom. “But a rapist is not just someone you meet in a dark parking lot late at night. They can also be found in family and among friends.
Protests were held across France to show support for Bellicault, with many women expressing their admiration for her courage.
“It’s not courage. It’s determination to change things,” she said. “This is not just my fight, it’s the fight of all rape victims.”
This courtroom sketch by Valentin Pasquier shows Giselle Bellico, left, and her ex-husband Dominique Bellico, right, during his trial, at the Court of Avignon, in Avignon, southern France, Tuesday, September 17, 2024.
Valentin Pasquier/Associated Press
Most of the defendants told the court that Dominic Belico manipulated them, refusing to blame him. Only a few of them confessed to raping Giselle Bellico.
Some have apologized.
She told the court: “I hear those apologies, but they are not heard.” “By apologizing, they are trying to justify themselves.”
Belico told the court her husband’s betrayal of her trust was beyond the pale, telling the court: “I am a completely destroyed woman.”
She told the court she thought he was the perfect husband, before adding: “My life has fallen into nothingness.”
The 50 men on trial include a prison guard, a soldier, a firefighter, a former police officer, a journalist, nurses and a civil servant, many of whom live around the small French town of Mazan, which the Pelico family calls home.
The trial is expected to end in December.
— With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
