Dominique Pelicot given maximum 20 year sentence in France rape trial that has shocked the world
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(LONDON) — Dominique Pelicot, 72, has been given the maximum sentence of 20 years in the massive trial that has shaken France and shocked the world.
Pelicot and the 50 codefendants have all been found guilty, with all except one having been charged with rape.
The trial began on Sept. 2. Hearings took place for nearly three months and included testimony from Gisèle herself, who has become a feminist icon in France and across the world.
Prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence of 20 years for Dominique Pelicot and 10 years or more for most of the other co-defendants, if they’re found guilty. Dominique Pelicot had asked his family to “accept his apologies.”
Forty-nine of the 50 other co-defendants face aggravated rape or attempted rape charges. One co-defendant is accused of sexual assault and could face up to four years in prison.
Dominique Pelicot testified during the trial in Avignon that he mixed sedatives into Gisèle Pelicot ‘s food and drink so he could rape her, and that he recruited at least 50 other men via an online chat forum and invited them over to the family home where they are alleged to have raped and sexually abused Gisèle Pelicot. Dominique acknowledged in court that he’s guilty of the allegations and that his co-defendants understood what they were doing, The Associated Press reported.
The alleged abuse took place for almost a decade in their home in Provence, from 2011 to 2020. Gisèle has since divorced her husband.
Dominique Pélicot collected 20,000 photos and videos and stored the evidence, which later helped lead prosecutors to the 50 other defendants — “although about 20 others haven’t yet been identified,” The AP has reported.
She refused to stay anonymous, saying in court at one point during the hearings that she wants women who have been raped to know that “it’s not for us to have shame — it’s for them,” per The AP.
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge and Hugo Leenhardt contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The stunning collapse of President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria presents “a moment of historic opportunity,” President Joe Biden wrote on X on Sunday, as rebel fighters and Damascenes celebrated the end of their 14-year war against the authoritarian government.
But, the president added, “It is also a moment of risk and uncertainty.”
The uprising that began with a protest march in the southern city of Daraa in 2011 ended with celebratory gunfire in Damascus in 2024.
The surprise rebel offensive that surged out of northwestern Idlib province last month showed the regime in Damascus to be hollow. Its backers in Moscow, Tehran and Beirut were unable or unwilling to respond, perhaps because their attention and resources having been sapped by wars in Ukraine, Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere.
The story of the fall of Damascus was — arguably — written in Donetsk and Dahiya. The coup de grâce, though, was inherently Syrian.
The offensive that toppled Assad was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group with roots in al-Qaeda. The group is listed as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and European Union.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said over the weekend that the group’s background “is a concern,” noting that elements of the group are affiliated with organizations “that have American blood on their hands.”
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has become the most recognizable face of the Syrian opposition. Speaking at Damascus’ 8th-century Umayyad Mosque on Sunday, Jolani said the opposition victory is “historic for the region” and that “Syria is being purified.”
It remains unclear whether and how Jolani — who is increasingly using his real name of Ahmed al-Sharaa, rather than his nom de guerre — will be able to exert control over the disparate groupings of rebel forces drawn from around the country.
What does the US think?
American officials are concerned that the power vacuum will allow ISIS to reconstitute. The U.S. launched 75 strikes against ISIS targets in central Syria on Sunday in a move that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said was designed “to keep the pressure on ISIS.”
“As this unfolds, there’s a potential that elements in the area, such as ISIS, could try to take advantage of this opportunity and regain capability,” Austin warned.
The future shape of U.S.-Syrian relations will depend on the composition and direction of the next government in Damascus.
The White House may be somewhat pleased by Jolani’s speech at the Umayyad Mosque on Sunday, in which he lamented how Syria became “a playground for Iranian ambitions.”
“We will remain vigilant,” Biden said on Sunday after Damascus fell. “Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses.” The president, however, added that the groups are “saying the right things now.”
“But as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions,” Biden added.
Thomas S. Warrick — a former deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy in the Department of Homeland Security — said the U.S. “has a huge stake in what comes next,” even if it was not directly involved in Assad’s ousting.
A more stable Syria “that frees itself from Iranian and Russian dependence” could, Warrick wrote, allow millions of refugees to return home, end its role as a Hezbollah conduit to threaten Israel and perhaps even join the Abraham Accords at some point in the future.
“All these unthinkable things are now possible,” Warrick — now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative — wrote. “But this will not happen spontaneously, without outside help and support. Postwar planning for Syria needs to go into high gear.”
The incoming Trump administration will need to chart a policy approach to Syria. Some will be skeptical of success, but others — Warrick wrote — will note that “weakening Iranian influence, supporting Israel’s security, and peace in Lebanon are, collectively, one of the biggest wins that a Trump administration could hope to achieve.”
A Syrian power struggle
In a recent interview with CNN, Jolani said that Syrians should not fear HTS’s brand of Islamism. “People who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly,” he said.
As the rebels reached Damascus, Assadist Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali said the outgoing regime would “extend its hand” to the opposition and assist with the transition of power. Jolani said on Sunday that Jalali will remain in his post to supervise state bodies during the transition.
Jolani and his HTS will have competition for influence in the new Syria.
The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army also took part in the offensive, with fighting still ongoing between the SNA and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces — who are supported by the U.S. — in the northeast of the country. Ankara enjoys significant control over the SNA and other groups and can be expected to seek influence over the future direction of its neighbor.
“The opposition is not a homogenous movement and there is a risk that internal fractures within the HTS-led umbrella movement — which may become more salient in the weeks and months to come — may lead to discord and threaten Syrian stability,” Burcu Ozcelik of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K. told ABC News.
“A new transitional Syrian administration will soon need to take on the task of state-building, including the rebuilding of a national Syrian security force and a constitution-building process, as the Syrian state has been painfully hallowed out by the Assad regime,” Ozcelik said.
The next government will also need to address the question of Russian presence in Syria. Russian forces retain control of Khmeimim Air Base and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, two key strategic facilities from which Moscow helped keep Assad in power.
“It is in Russia’s interest to seek to maintain access, but its ability to project power in and through Syria is now severely debilitated,” Ozcelik said.
“It will take time and negotiations with the new Syrian administration, a yet to be determined entity, before it is clear what Russia’s stakes in Syria will be,” Ozcelik added. “But this is now a radically transformed Syria, and Russia has no good options.”
Moscow is in touch with the opposition factions, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a Sunday statement. “All necessary measures are being taken to ensure the safety of our citizens in Syria,” it said. “Russian military bases in Syria are on high alert. There is currently no serious threat to their security.”
For Tehran, “there is no doubt that the fall of the Assad regime is a highly consequential defeat for Iran,” Ozcelik said. “Syria was the conduit for Iran’s systematic support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, this supply chain has now been cut off.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is concerned about the “possibility of a renewed civil war or a sectarian war between different sects or the division of Syria and the collapse of Syria and its transformation into a haven for terrorists.”
Meanwhile, rebel-liberated territory is already being bombed by Israeli warplanes and occupied by Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials have said they intend to deny “extremist” elements access to the Assad regime’s advanced military capabilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the regime’s collapse “is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, the main supporters of the Assad regime.”
“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” he added.
Assad’s legacy
Assad fled the country for Russia in the early hours of Sunday, state-owned Russian media said, having resigned the presidency following negotiations with opposition factions, per a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced Monday that President Vladimir Putin would grant his longtime ally political asylum in the country.
Assad’s departure ended 24 years of his rule — and 50 years of Assad family rule. Posters and statues of Assad, his brothers and his father, Hafez Assad, were being torn down by jubilant crowds around the country.
More than a decade of civil war left at least 307,000 people dead by the end of 2022, per United Nations figures. The fighting forced around 12 million Syrians — more than half of the country’s 2011 population of around 22 million — from their homes, around 5.4 million of whom were still living abroad as of late 2022.
Assad’s regime fought bitterly to retain control of much of the country during the hot phase of the civil war. But his victory proved a pyrrhic one.
The northern city of Aleppo fell to the Idlib rebels on Nov. 29 — a shocking development that helped spark renewed rebel uprisings all across the country.
In Daraa — known as the “Cradle of the Syrian Revolution” for its role in the 2011 unrest — opposition groups rose anew and began their march on the capital.
“Damascus has been liberated and the tyrant Bashar Assad has been overthrown, and oppressed prisoners in regime prisons have been released,” a rebel spokesperson said at the state television headquarters in Damascus after opposition forces seized the building.
“We ask people and fighters to protect all property in Free Syria,” the spokesperson added. “Long live Syria free for all Syrians of all sects.”
ABC News’ Hami Hamedi, Ellie Kaufman, Luis Martinez and Lauren Minore contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet on Tuesday and hold a vote on a cease-fire deal that could end more than a year of fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border, an Israeli official told ABC News. The cabinet is expected to approve the U.S.-brokered deal.
Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah launches continued regardless. Airstrikes again rocked the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya on Tuesday, with the Israel Defense Forces reporting “large scale” attacks on the area shortly after issuing multiple evacuation orders. Another IDF strike hit a building in the central Basta neighborhood, which was also subject to an massive airstrike on Saturday.
The IDF reported at least 250 projectiles fired into Israel on Monday, with Hezbollah claiming multiple cross-border attacks on Israeli targets on Tuesday morning.
An Israeli source with knowledge of the deal’s details told ABC News that the 60-day cease-fire would see all Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon in phases, with Hezbollah retreating beyond the Litani River around 18 miles north of the Israeli border.
Lebanese Armed Forces troops — with assistance from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon — will deploy to the south of the country to ensure that Hezbollah does not re-enter the area between the Israeli border and the Litani, the source said.
The U.S. will provide oversight on Hezbollah’s withdrawal and will also head a committee — joined by French and Arab partners — to monitor and verify the implementation of the cease-fire, the Israeli source added.
The cease-fire would be expected to come into force shortly after the agreement is announced — as early as Wednesday morning. The two Israeli sources involved in the talks who spoke with ABC News said the proposal has near-unanimous agreement from the security cabinet, though far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is expected to vote against it. His opposition will not torpedo the deal.
A parallel U.S.-Israeli agreement, though, suggests that any deal will not necessarily mean an end to all fighting.
The Israeli source with knowledge of the deal said the U.S. has pledged support for Israel’s right to strike anywhere in Lebanon against “critical” or “immediate” threats from Hezbollah or other militant groups.
Still, the possible cease-fire deal would be a major diplomatic achievement after nearly 14 months of war and almost 4,000 total deaths — the vast majority Lebanese — on both sides of the shared border.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled their homes in the north of the country, while a quarter of Lebanon’s population — around 1.2 million people — have been put under IDF evacuation orders.
U.S. officials have hinted at progress but refused to confirm details of any deal.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists at a Monday briefing that the outcome of the talks is “up to the parties, not to us.”
“We don’t believe we have an agreement yet,” Miller said. “We believe we’re close to an agreement. We believe that we have narrowed the gap significantly, but there are still steps that we need to see taken, but we hope — we hope that we can get there.”
White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby was similarly cautious. “We believe that the trajectory of this is going in a very positive direction,” he told reporters Monday.
“But again, nothing is done until everything is done. Nothing’s all negotiated till everything is negotiated. And you know, we need to keep at the work to see it through so that we can actually get the ceasefire for which we’ve been working for for so long and so hard.”
ABC News’ Jordana Miller, Joe Simonetti, Ghazi Balkiz, Joe Simonetti, Chris Boccia and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.
The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.
That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.
The US just experienced its warmest autumn on record
Another season, another climate milestone. According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), persistent above-average to record-warm conditions across much of the United States made meteorological autumn, which lasts from September to November, the warmest ever recorded.
The record-warm fall season makes it more likely that 2024 will end up as one of the nation’s warmest, if not the warmest, years on record. As of November 2024, the contiguous U.S. year-to-date temperature was 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Despite December’s chilly start for much of the country, with widespread below-average temperatures in many regions, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says that the cold will ease during the second half of the month with above-average temperatures favored from the West to the Northeast.
The stretch of abnormally warm temperatures was accompanied by extremely dry weather across much of the country, fueling dangerous wildfire conditions in regions like the Northeast. A very dry start to the season brought drought conditions to more than half of the lower 48 states by late October.
Fortunately, several significant rainfall events in November brought notable drought relief to large swaths of the country, reducing overall drought coverage by nearly 10.5% and suppressing the wildfire danger.
-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck
Nearly one-third of the planet’s species risk extinction because of climate change
Nearly one-third of the world’s species could be at risk for extinction because of climate change if the world does nothing to reduce global warming, according to a new analysis from Science.
University of Connecticut researcher and biologist Mark Urban found that while some species are adapting to climate change, 160,000 species are already at risk. Many are now facing declining populations because of changes in our climate.
According to the study, with current global temperatures at 1.3 degrees Celsius above industrial levels, 1.6% of species are projected to become extinct. As the temperatures warm even more, Urban found the extinction rate would also increase, with the most severe scenario included (5.4 degrees Celsius of warming) putting the extinction risk at 29.7%.
“The increased certainty of predicted climate change extinctions compels action,” Urban wrote. “Extinction represents just the final endpoint of a species’ existence; even when extinction is avoided, declining abundances and shrinking ranges can strongly affect many other species, including humans.”
Urban defines the risk of extinction as the probability that any one species will go extinct without mitigation efforts. Urban found that extinction rates could increase dramatically if global temperatures rise over 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to industrial levels.
1.5 degrees Celsius is the warming limit set by the world’s nations under the Paris Agreement after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that crossing that benchmark would lead to more severe climate change impacts.
Risks varied across geographic areas in the study, with Australia/New Zealand and South America facing the highest risks (15.7% and 12.8%, respectively) and Asia facing lower risks (5.5%).
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Kelly Livingston
Antarctic sea ice hits new low during Earth’s 2nd warmest November on record
Imagine you have a swimming pool with ice cubes filling it. Now, measure the total area of the pool that has ice on the surface, even if the ice cubes don’t cover it completely. Because ice often spreads out unevenly, leaving water between the chunks, scientists count areas where at least 15% of the surface is covered. So, because your pool is loaded with ice cubes, it would be considered ice covered. In the real world, scientists call it sea ice extent.
While you can add ice to your pool, you can’t to the ocean. And according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service, the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has dipped to its lowest value on record for the month of November. It is 10% below average. This occurred during a stretch of near-record global land and sea surface temperatures.
Last month ranked as the second warmest November on record globally, with an average temperature of 14.10 degrees Celsius, or 57.38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Copernicus noted the new data not only makes it virtually certain that 2024 will surpass 2023 as Earth’s warmest year on record, but it will likely be the first year to be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
As of November 2024, the average global year-to-date temperature was 0.14 degrees Celsius (or 0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than it was in 2023, which is the warmest year ever recorded.
