A four-year prison sentence including two years was required Monday, November 22 against a man on appeal in Paris for the sexual assault of the novelist Edouard Louis, prosecution from which he had been released by the Criminal Court.
The Advocate General asked for the same sentence as that required at first instance by the prosecution, four years in prison including two years with probationary suspension against Riadh B., Algerian of 36 years.
Read also
Battles and metamorphoses of a woman
by Édouard Louis: Madame Bellegueule mother
The defendant, also nicknamed Reda, again challenged any violence against the writer, now 30, absent at the hearing as during the first trial.
Now his denials, Riadh B. refused to answer questions from the court, explaining that he had already "
told the whole truth
" in "
this story
" which made him "
sick
".
A book inspired by this story
On the evening of December 25, 2012, Edouard Louis, who was then called Eddy Bellegueule and was not yet a famous author, had filed a complaint for rape under the threat of a weapon and aggravated theft. To the police, he had reported meeting in the street a man named Reda who had accompanied him to his home. He had explained that he had had consensual sex, before realizing that his tablet and his phone had disappeared. Confronted, Reda had, according to the complainant's statements, become threatening, strangled him with a sling and then raped him. From that night, Edouard Louis had drawn the book "
History of violence
", published in January 2016, a few days before the accidental arrest of his alleged attacker in another case.
At the end of the investigation, as in many cases of rape accusations, the facts had been reclassified as "
sexual assault
", bringing the case before a court and not at the assizes. In December 2020, the criminal court sentenced Riadh B. to three months' suspended imprisonment for aggravated theft, but had acquitted him of the charge of sexual assault, in particular because of "
the inconsistency of statements
" by Edouard. Louis who had moreover always refused the confrontation with the one he accused.
In a letter read by his lawyer Me Emmanuel Pierrat, the novelist assures the court that if he was not present at the hearing it is "
not out of cowardice or offhand
", but "
quite simply because (he is) afraid
”.
The defense lawyer, Me Marie Dosé, deplored a "
manipulation of the judiciary
", a book which "
polluted
" the file.
During the promotion of his work, Edouard Louis had asserted that "it
was the truth
".
After the arrest of Riadh B, "
there could be no turning back possible
" for the writer, estimated Me Dosé who pleaded for release.
The appeals court will deliver its decision on January 31.
