Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
A man is on trial in southern France accused of drugging and sexually abusing women, as well as filming some of the assaults.
Dance teacher and self-taught hypnotherapist Cyril Zattara is charged with raping 14 women over a decade, as well as allegedly secretly filming around 20 other women.
Zattara, who has been held in detention awaiting trial since 2021, has admitted 10 rape charges.
The trial is being held behind closed doors in the city of Aix-en-Provence at the request of one of the alleged victims, and is due to last at least two weeks. Others had sought open proceedings, saying they wanted their voices to be heard by as many people as possible.
Zattara would allegedly slip sleeping pills into women’s drinks before sexually assaulting them, a police investigation found. He allegedly often targeted women he was friends with or in intimate relationships with.
Investigators found photos and videos on Zattara’s computer that showed the alleged victims in a lethargic state during sex.
One woman, who filed a complaint against the defendant in 2019 after attending one of his hypnosis sessions, said she had drunk some wine he had offered her and later woke up, recalling in fragments that she had been raped by Zattara and that she had been vomiting.
His DNA was found under her fingernails and on her underwear, while toxicology results showed powerful sleep-inducing drugs in her system.
The Zattara trial follows the high-profile case of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed for 20 years after drugging and raping his ex-wife Gisèle and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her over nearly a decade.
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