Four men accused of raping a young woman in the parking lot of a nightclub in 2018 will have to answer for their acts in court on Monday.
It is almost 6 am and the “Carpe Diem”, a nightclub located in Balma, an affluent suburb of Toulouse, is about to close. A few meters away, in the parking lot of the nightclub, a young woman is raped by clubbers. On one of the rape videos posted on Snapchat, a person attending the scene outside the nightclub told a friend involved in the assault, “Stop it, it’s a rape“. A call without effect. The scene continues.
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Two days later, the young woman declared to the gendarmes that she felt like “a toy, a puppet in the middle of arguing children“. His four alleged rapists, all from the Toulouse suburbs, will be tried at the Criminal Court of Haute-Garonne from Monday, March 1, for these facts of September 16, 2018. The trial should take place in camera, at the request of the victim.
Three rape videos
Three videos of the sexual assaults, filmed on September 16 at dawn, are in the file. Immediately after the events, the defendants, aged 19 to 25, fled to Spain or Morocco, sometimes after receiving death threats on social networks. An investigation by the research section (SR) of the Toulouse gendarmerie quickly identified them. The first police custody came after their return to Toulouse, a month after the rape, and the four men were immediately placed in pre-trial detention. The accused were identified and located thanks to video images and telephony, then confused by analyzes of DNA traces on the clothes of the young woman.
The victim went to the “Carpe Diem” with the boy she was dating and with another couple. That night, she had consumed joints and cocktails combining alcohol and energy drink. “She has trouble remembering how she ended up in the parking lot. Then, her refusal is clear, we see in the images that she is pulled by the hair, carried at arm’s length, maintained during the act», Reports his lawyer.
The defendants deny the facts
Out of school early, the victim, aged 19, did odd jobs and lived in great precariousness. “She is a young girl who was not used to nightlife, she had been drinking, she was the victim of predators, who knew how to perceive her fragility, her vulnerability.», Denounces his lawyer, Ravyn Issa, who describes«a sociable young girl, who spoke quite easily“. That day, “his life has changed“, Continues Me Issa:”The little confidence she had in herself was sacked that night. She is still traumatized, extremely anxious, in the throes of sudden panics. She can’t rebuild herself».
The defendants downplay their participation in the assault, deny having raped it, or claim that the sex was consensual. The youngest, a 19-year-old delivery driver at the time of the facts, claims that the first sexual relationship between the young woman and three of the four accused was consented, then that the situation degenerated into rape, in which he did not participate, details his lawyer Robin Sénié-Delon, who will plead for him the non-assistance to person in danger. “These three young men had fled after the fact, which they were greatly criticized. Justice never doubted their guilt», Regrets the lawyer. But for him, “all those who participated in the rape are not in the box», He adds.
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