France: Beatrice Peliko – “You and I against the world around”

Béatrice This lawyer from Marseille, with her small stature, is across the globe. He defends Dominique Pelicus, the 71-year-old man on trial from 2 September and until 20 December in Avignon in France for drugging his ex-wife Giselle for ten years Pelic in order for him to rape her and dozens more men. In the courtroom, the 55-year-old lawyer is isolated, facing all the protagonists of the creepy case: Giselle Pelico, her lawyers, the two prosecutors but also with the majority of defense lawyers of the other 50 defendants after questioning that they had been informed by Dominique Pelico that the victim had been drugged in advance. “You and I against the world all over” “This battle seemed as early as 2022. It was the year of confrontations between Mr Pelico and the other defendants during the trial. At the time, I told my client: “This trial will be you and me across the world”. Zavarro was right. He had to be on guard even when he came out of the courtroom. “Watch yourself,” a man told her during the early days of the hearing. Another, “with a very annoying look, something like crazy”, had approached her. Thousands of malicious phone calls followed her office. “At the beginning of the trial, it was a phone call a day. Now they’ve calmed down a little,” he says. The case occupies a room in the house. Defending a criminal is never easy and is often a job misunderstood. “Mr. Pelico committed monstrous acts. What he did is unthinkable” he admits and continues: “But even if we hate him, my mission is also to help us understand how this man came to commit such crimes. In other words, to address the entire personality of this former electrician and real estate agent. One side, as described by psychiatrists, is that of the father and grandfather that the around him appreciates, and the other side, “a dark personality that comes out in the evening.” Zavarro must still prove that when her client, who argues that all men who came to the couple’s house knew that his wife was drugged, “he is not a liar.” To do this, he has plunged hours endless in the case files: 31 volumes, 100 kg in total. “At home, I’ve put them all in a separate room”. Separate what will be useful to her and what she can put aside. “I have been working on them since the end of 2023,” says the woman who is paid only with legal help. The four-month trial is just as demanding. Even during the rare moments of rest. From 28 October to 1 November, there is no court meeting. As a result, this week, she is busy with appointments involving other cases. As for the first quarter of 2025 “it is already quite full…”. It still has to face the incredible impact this trial has caused on the media in France and throughout the world. “I had not predicted this,” admits the woman who previously defended Christine Devier – Zoncourt in the Elf case, one of France’s largest political-economic scandals. “I am not alone” More than anyone else, he is aware of the dimension that this open trial has received. The criminal hearing also gave rise to “a social debate on sexual violence, for men as a whole. We owe this to Giselle Pelico. This trial became a political issue,” he observes. Béatrice Zavarro knows it will be difficult to save her client the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, “even if she does not put any pressure on me for this deadline. He has never asked me to cut him off for a few years,” he assures. He knows what he’s gonna say and how he’s gonna say it. She admits that she is “used up” by journalists’ questions but is open to their questions. She says she keeps business away from her personal life. “Have you not mentioned me yet?” laughs her husband, who is not missing from her side throughout the trial at Avignon. “It’s true, I’m not alone. There are two of us.”