The hearing of Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou has been postponed to August 6 “at the request of the parties,” the Mendoza prosecutor’s office indicated…
The defense requested that it be postponed. Three players from the French national team, Antoine Fritsch, Giorgi Beria, and Jean-Baptiste Gros, who were also at the hotel the night of the events, will be heard this week. We believe that the strategy of the two defendants is to wait for these testimonies.
What do you expect from these testimonies?
They were requested by the defense. We suspect that they will say that they didn’t hear anything. How could they claim they heard cries for help and did nothing? That’s why we are requesting a site visit to see the rooms. Are the walls thick? Do the rooms communicate? At this stage, no reenactment has been done. The defense claims that if my client had screamed, it would have been heard. But if two large, strong men force and abuse a woman, the shock means she isn’t necessarily going to scream. We maintain that she begged them in English to let her go home, and they said no.
“Only her body will tell when she can resume a normal life”
Your client recently said in the press that she was trapped…
I clarify that she did not give an interview; she simply responded to an Instagram message from journalists. As for the issue of consent, what happened falls under global standards, not just Argentine ones: consent stops when a person says “no.” She said yes to going for a drink at the hotel, not to enduring all of this. She did not give her consent for what happened after the drink.
What can you tell us about her?
She is a 39-year-old mother living in Mendoza with her parents and brothers. She is a local family; her father and older brother are lawyers, her younger brother is a court employee. She works in a public institution. She previously worked for a multinational in Buenos Aires and came here following a separation after seventeen years of living together with her partner.
Physically and psychologically, she is not in a state to return to work. Only her body will tell when she can resume a normal life. She is currently benefiting from a victim assistance protocol and suffers from post-traumatic stress. She is being followed by a psychologist and has had to be hospitalized twice. She takes 15 medications a day to cope.
The defense believes that the medical report does not support your client’s claims…
The defense forgets to mention that 15 injuries were noted on the day the complainant filed her complaint. The forensic doctor was heard a week later and confirmed his initial findings.
The defense’s strategy is to suggest that my client may have injured herself. There are 15 injuries – and not stains, as has been claimed – on the back, buttocks, breasts, and legs… For example, there is a 4 cm bruise on the eyelid, a 10 cm bruise on the left breast, scratches on the back with the typical five-finger mark, and injuries on both knees because she was pursued in the room… The expert who analyzed these findings indicates that they date from less than twenty-four hours before the examination. How could she have done this to herself?
I add that we have more comprehensive analyses that mention edema of the vocal cords, which, in our opinion, could have been caused by strangulation. All of this attests to the violence she suffered, even if, at this stage, the expertise cannot say if that violence was intentional.
“The Argentine lawyer for the players is the brother of the Minister of Justice; this is really not a trivial situation”
Are you expecting other medical expert reviews?
Three other doctors still need to be heard, including the doctor who examined the vocal cords. But we are especially awaiting results from important analyses: those from DNA tests, thanks to samples that were taken from my client on the day she filed her complaint, as well as toxicological analyses.
Why didn’t your client give her cell phone to the authorities?
Everything that serves the investigation has been extracted from the phones of the players and witnesses. Therefore, there was no reason to give her phone since everything had been recovered. Argentine law allows for this protection of victims. The prosecutor accepted it. She was afraid that personal data would leak. The Argentine lawyer for the players is the brother of the Minister of Justice; this is really not a trivial situation. In fact, even if I believe that the investigation and the trial will remain objective, the advantages already gained by the defense are striking and this greatly worries my client.
What do you mean?
There is an anomaly in the placement under house arrest. The two defendants should not be able to communicate to coordinate their testimonies before being heard. However, they are both together in the same residence… There will be a new detention hearing on August 12. Our goal is for them to remain under house arrest but to not be together to conspire.
Interview conducted by Maud Rieu and Yann Saint-Sernin