Controversial French gang-rape trial goes to appeal

A controversial gang-rape case went to a juvenile court near Paris a year after a lower court acquitted 10 of the 14 accused, a verdict that feminists described as a "licence to rape".

The Cité des Larris housing estate in Fontenay-sous-Bois Wikimédia/Buisson

Seven men appeared at the court in Evry, south of Paris, on Tuesday morning.

Another has been on the run for several years and is believed to be in Chile.

They are accused of being among a number of youths who took part in gang rapes in the cellar of a tower block in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-sous-Bois between 1999 and 2001.

Although they were minors at the time, they are now adults, some of them with families.

Their accusers, known as Aurélie and Nina, who were 15 and 16 at the time, took 11 years to come forward but then told investigators that they had been through "hell" with so many youths lining up to rape them that they could not keep count.

"Sometimes there were so many people that not everybody could have a go," one of the accused told police during the inquiry before retracting in court.

All of the accused at the first trial last year denied the charges, some claiming that the girls had consented to sex.

Ten were acquitted and four were given sentences ranging from three years suspended to one year in jail.

After a complicated trial, during which the girls are reported to have contradicted themselves on occiaison, the court judged that only the rape of Nina had been proved.

The outcome caused an outcry with the Osez le féminisme group calling the judgement a "licence to rape".

Prosecutors, who had called for 20-year sentences, appealed against the four sentences and four of the acquittals.

On Tuesday only Nina was present.

Aurélie, who is now five and a half months pregnant, is in a "fragile" state, according to her lawyer, Clotilde Lepetit.

During the previous trial she attempted suicide, while Nina was hospitalised after feeling faint.