The family of Guillaume T., a student whose testimony sparked a #MeTooGay movement in January, would like an investigation to examine the possible responsibility for his suicide of the PCF elected official whom he had accused of rape, has she announced this Monday, February 15, in a press release from her lawyer.
Read also: #Metoogay: thousands of gays speak out on sexual violence
On January 21 on Twitter, the young man of 20 years had accused of rape a communist adviser to the town hall of Paris, Maxime Cochard, and the companion of the latter.
The elected official immediately challenged these accusations, which have since sparked hundreds of other messages on sexual violence in gay circles.
Read also: Nanterre: a student who accused a Parisian elected official of rape found dead
On February 9, Guillaume T. was found dead, hanged in his room on the Nanterre campus (Hauts-de-Seine).
The local prosecutor's office had opened an investigation to examine the causes of his death.
At the same time, Me Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon announced on Monday that she had been mandated by the student's family to seize the "Paris prosecutor's office with a complaint against X for willful violence resulting in death without intention of giving it".
In these circumstances, it is usually the offense of "provocation to suicide", an offense punishable by three years in prison, that is invoked.
It requires demonstrating an explicit incitement to suicide as well as the perpetrator's intention to lead the victim to it.
A criminal qualification
But against all expectations, the lawyer chose here a criminal qualification, that called "fatal blows", punishable by 15 years of imprisonment.
It requires demonstrating a willingness on the part of the accused to cause physical harm to the victim and that this harm be the direct cause of death.
"Guillaume (...) did not leave any mail to explain his gesture, and he therefore takes with him the inner reason which will have finally determined his act"
, continues the lawyer, before listing the
"voluntary violence"
which would have could, according to her, cause his gesture, attributing them implicitly to Mr. Cochard and the companion of the chosen one.
"Guillaume had denounced abuse of a sexual nature that could be qualified as rape, which can constitute violence"
, adds the lawyer.
To read also: "Since this summer, I have thought about suicide", the chilling testimony of the godson of Dominique Boutonnat
"The people questioned replied not through the courts as they first claimed but first through the media to discredit, discredit and denigrate Guillaume, which could constitute another violence"
, writes in besides Me Tuaillon-Hibon.
The elected Maxime Cochard - who pleads a
"consensual act, between adults"
in the words of his lawyer Me Fanny Colin - had announced his intention to file a defamation complaint, an approach that was not yet initiated at the time of death of the student.
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" I am a survivor of a sexual assault ": Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confides her trauma
