Migrant in Court Claims He Did Not Know Sex with His Daughter Was Illegal

Luc Ravaz (R) and Aurelie Cerceau (L), defenders of Bruno Cholet, a serial rapist who oper
ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/GettyImages
Chris Tomlinson

A migrant accused of raping his eldest daughter has told a court that he was unaware that sexual relations with family members were illegal in France.

The daughter, now 24, initially told the police that her father had been physically abusive towards her and her family and that they lived in an atmosphere of terror. During the trial, she said that her father had raped her every day for 11 years.

The victim’s sisters stated that they had seen their father enter the rape victim’s room and spend 20 to 30 minutes there before leaving in his underwear, French newspaper Le Republicain Lorrain reports.

“I always hoped that my mother would get up at night and catch him,” the 24-year -old victim said. Her mother, who is said to have hearing issues, stated that she had not slept with her husband in years.

After the main judge in the case confronted the migrant with a message sent to his daughter that seemed to admit the sexual abuse, the man admitted that he had had sex with her at least once.

“She was the one who wanted it,” he told the court and claimed: “I didn’t know that in France, having sex with your daughter was punishable by law.”

The admission came at a hearing after the man was convicted for violence against the mother and youngest daughter and was sentenced to 12 months in prison, followed by a ban on entering France for five years. The public prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, has ordered a new, full investigation into the allegations of rape against the eldest daughter.

The plea of ignorance of the law in the case comes less than two weeks after a 30-year-old Afghan man on trial for raping a 12-year-old boy attempted to claim that the court should take his culture into consideration for the crime.

The lawyer referred to the Afghan custom of “Bacha Bazi”, a form of pederasty in which men turn young boys into sex slaves. The court rejected the defence, finding the Afghan guilty and sentencing him to 15 years in prison.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

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