Argentinian court hears bid to throw out rape case against French rugby players
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Rafael Cuneo Libarona, lawyer for French rugby players Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, arrives at the Mendoza Criminal Court.
PHOTO: AFP
MENDOZA – An Argentinian court on Nov 25 began hearing an application by two French international rugby players accused of raping a woman after a match in July to have the charges dismissed.
Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, both aged 21, were held for nearly two months in Argentina in connection with the alleged attack on a 39-year-old woman in Mendoza after a win against Los Pumas.
They deny the charges, saying the sex was consensual.
Prosecutors in October recommended that the charges of aggravated rape – a charge used for suspected gang rape – be dropped.
Lawyers for the pair and their accuser did not speak in detail when they arrived at the hearing, an AFP reporter said, while the judge for the case is expected to make her decision known in a few days, counsel for both sides said.
The players’ defence counsel German Hnatow said he was confident his clients would be cleared.
The complainant’s lawyer Natacha Romano accused the prosecution of bias.
One of the players’ lawyers is the brother of Argentina’s justice minister.
Auradou, a lock with Pau, and Jegou, a flanker with La Rochelle, were arrested two days after winning their first international caps for France against Argentina in Mendoza, about 1,000 kilometres west of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.
The woman, whom they met in a nightclub on the night of their July 6 match against Argentina, alleged they assaulted her viciously in the hotel room.
The players were kept in preventive custody for a little over a week and then under house arrest for nearly a month before being allowed to return to France after prosecutors said the case against them had weakened.
A psychological assessment of the woman ordered by the prosecution showed “a series of inconsistencies and contradictions” in her testimony and concluded that her version of events was “not plausible”.
The accusations against the players coupled with racist remarks by fullback Melvyn Jaminet on the same night in July, for which he was sent home from the tour and received a 34-week suspension, overshadowed the French team’s summer tour of Argentina.
French Rugby Federation president Florian Grill in October announced an overhaul of disciplinary measures in the wake of the scandals and also vowed to put an end to “the fourth and fifth half” post-match celebrations that had preceded both cases.
Grill admitted that there had been in the past a “form of acceptance of these excesses, which could sometimes even be organised”.
Auradou and Jego have returned to their Top 14 rugby union club teams.
Auradou was whistled off the pitch during his first match on his return, which Pau lost 11-10 to Perpignan in October. AFP
