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By Marc Leras
AVIGNON, France (Reuters) -Gisele Pelicot, subjected to mass rape organised by her husband over 10 years, on Tuesday condemned the cowardice of the dozens of men accused of abusing her who claim they didn't realise it was rape, adding that France's patriarchal society must change.
Dominique Pelicot, her husband, has admitted to drugging his wife, 71, and inviting strangers to their house to rape her while she was unconscious, in a trial that has attracted worldwide attention and turned into an examination of the pervasiveness of sexual violence.
Most of the 50 other men on trial have said they did not realise they were raping her, did not intend to rape her or put all the blame on her husband, whom they said had manipulated them.
"For me this is the trial of cowardice, there is no other way to describe it," Gisele Pelicot said, adding that there was no excuse for abusing her when she was unconscious.
Video recorded by her husband and shown in court over the past weeks has repeatedly featured her motionless, sometimes snoring, while the accused, including her husband, abused her.
"When you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to react," she said, in an address to the accused, many of whom were in the courtroom. "Why did you not leave immediately to report it to the police?"
Gisele Pelicot only learnt of the abuse four years ago when police stumbled upon videos and pictures her husband recorded of the abuse he orchestrated and also carried out.
'RAPE IS RAPE'
Gisele Pelicot told the court she was angry at the accused, not least because any of them could, at any time, have put an end to her ordeal if they had denounced her husband.
"They must take responsibility for their actions. They raped. Rape is rape," she added.
It is the third time she has addressed the court in Avignon, southern France, as the trial heads towards delivering its verdicts and sentences around Dec. 20.
Under French law, she could have asked for the trial to be kept behind closed doors. Instead she asked for it be held in public, saying she hoped it would help other women speak up and show that victims have nothing to be ashamed of.
"It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it looks at rape," she told the court. She said she would never forgive her husband.
On Monday, the Pelicots' two sons asked the court to punish him severely and also said they would never forgive him and that he was dead to them. Their sister, Caroline Darian, said she believed Dominique Pelicot had also drugged and abused her.
When it was Dominique Pelicot's turn to speak on Tuesday, he repeated that he had not abused Caroline Darian or his grand-children. At that point, his daughter interrupted him from the courtroom, shouting that he was a liar.
"You don't even have the courage to tell the truth!" she shouted. "You will die in a lie. You are alone in your lie."
Earlier in the trial, Dominique Pelicot admitted to raping his wife while she was unconscious, as well as inviting others to rape her, telling the court: "I am a rapist, just like all the others in this room."
(Additional reporting by Manuel Ausloos, Antony Paone in Avignon and Juliette Jabkhiro in Paris, Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alison Williams, Alexandra Hudson, William Maclean)
