Photo: Miguel Medina Agence France-Presse Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot's lawyer, at the Avignon courthouse, October 2, 2024
David Courbet – Agence France-Presse in Avignon
Published at 10:11
- Europe
Small in size and discreet in appearance, Béatrice Zavarro could easily go unnoticed in the courtroom of Avignon, in the south of France. Serene, she nevertheless has the immense responsibility of defending Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex criminals of recent decades.
“I am alone against the world,” explains the lawyer, with the calm and collected tone that has characterized her since the opening of the Mazan rape trial on September 2, before the criminal court of Vaucluse (south), where her client, 71, and 50 co-defendants are appearing.
The ex-husband had recruited these 50 men on the Internet to come and rape Gisèle Pelicot, after having drugged her, over a period of ten years at the couple's home.
By agreeing to the trial being public, Ms Pelicot, 71, has raised a powerful wave of support for victims of rape and sexual assault.
“Conductor” of this extraordinary criminal case, Dominique Pelicot acknowledges the facts and even wants the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. But he does not intend to go down alone: they “all knew” that they were coming to rape Gisèle Pelicot, he claims.
They deny it, accusing him in return of having manipulated them.
An unusual situation therefore, where the lawyer of the main accused supports the argument of the civil parties, at the risk of taking on an unexpected role as prosecutor.
“From the moment I defend a man who I am told is a liar, a manipulator, who has fooled everyone, I must try to re-establish the truth,” justifies Mr. Zavarro: “my mission is to make people understand, even if we hate him,” how he was able to carry out “these detestable acts.”
Mr. Zavarro previously defended Christine Deviers-Joncour in the Elf political-financial affair, and represented the father of Madison, a five-year-old girl who was kidnapped and killed in 2006 in the southeast of France.
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“Monster” or “monstrous” facts ?
“She is on a wire. Her position is far from obvious, but she holds it with great finesse. Not to reduce “the monster” to his crimes, to make us forget the B side to recall the A side, the two coexisting in this split personality”, recognizes Antoine Camus, one of the lawyers for the civil parties.
This description of “monster”, the 55-year-old Marseillaise with round red glasses refutes it, considering herself only as “the lawyer of someone who has committed something monstrous”.
And to recall that in “France, in a state of law, everyone has the right to be defended”.
Although she has not received any direct threats—she is absent from social media—her office receives numerous malicious calls. “You should be careful…”, a passerby had whispered to her in early September, sibylline.
“I decided to defend Dominique Pelicot because he asked me to. “He trusted me,” explains the lawyer, paid through legal aid — a mechanism funded by the State that every prisoner can benefit from — acknowledging that she “underestimated the media impact” of this trial with global repercussions.
It was one of her former clients who recommended her to Dominique Pelicot, when the two men met at Marseille's Baumettes prison.
“Velvet hand”
“Stubborn, very calm and courageous, because she plays the bad guy,” according to her colleague Patrick Gontard, who has been in the business for 45 years.
“She takes on her cases head on but with a velvet hand,” according to Myriam Gréco, who was defending Madison's murderer at the time, describing “a little woman who can bare her claws, but without showing off.”
A character that seems to match her personality: her patched lawyer's dress or her faded office in the heart of Marseille (south) testify to her refusal to make grand gestures.
In Avignon, where she is temporarily residing for the needs of this emblematic trial of sexual violence, she lives on the outskirts, in a working-class neighborhood.
Twice a day, she walks the two kilometers to the courthouse, to “free her mind,” tirelessly accompanied by her husband, Edward.
“She internalizes a lot, doesn't give much away, is hard on the hurt, so I play the clown on duty to cheer her up,” attests her partner of 30 years, sometimes mistaken for her bodyguard because of his imposing size.
For Me Zavarro, this trial constitutes “an essential episode in the evolution of the subject of rape”, with “a first level which is Gisèle Halimi [lawyer of this emblematic trial of 1978 which contributed to the recognition of rape as a crime] and a second level which will be Gisèle Pelicot”.