After several postponements, the hearing to examine the dropping of charges against French rugby players Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, charged with rape in Argentina in July, has been set for November 25, we learned this Wednesday 6 November from judicial sources. The lawyers of the two young internationals, aged 21, are calling for the legal action against them to be dropped. But the examination of their request for dismissal has already been postponed three times due to an appeal presented by the plaintiff’s lawyers requesting the incorporation of new elements – medical in this case – into the file. The hearing was set for November 25 at 9 a.m. local time (1 p.m. French time), according to the hearing program of the judicial center of Mendoza, in the west of the country.
The lawyers of the plaintiff, a 39-year-old Argentinian, and those of the two players will debate behind closed doors, in the presence of the prosecution, which will also request that the charges be dropped, as it announced at the end of the investigation. The judge presiding over the proceedings may render a decision immediately, or place it under advisement within a few days.
Auradou and Jegou have been charged for four months with aggravated rape committed in a meeting for alleged acts that occurred on the night of July 6 to 7 in a hotel in Mendoza, where the French XV had just played a match against Argentina. They have maintained from the beginning that the sexual relations with the complainant, met in a nightclub, were consensual and without violence. The complainant’s lawyer, on the contrary, denounced a rape with «violence terrible».
First placed in pre-trial detention then placed under house arrest in Mendoza, the players were released in mid-August, then authorized to return to France at the beginning of September. They both played again in the Top 14 with their clubs in Pau for Auradou and La Rochelle for Jegou.
Source: www.liberation.fr
