MENDOZA.- The woman who accused two French rugby players of rape in Argentina She said on Thursday that she felt “abandoned by the judicial system” which allowed the athletes to return to France and announced that she would sue one of the Argentine defense lawyers for “professional errors.”
“I feel abandoned by the Mendoza justice system,” said Maria, who is 39 years old and asked to be called, in an interview with AFP in which she did not show her face in front of the cameras and whose voice was modulated to protect her identity.
“They are calling me a criminal when I am the victim, when I fear for my life because I have no one to support me or to look after me under any circumstances,” he stressed.
The complainant, who said she had attempted suicide after the incident, is confident that “justice will be done by social justice”: “they will be condemned socially because my testimony is true.” She also has faith that “the one above” will judge them because “he knows the acts they have committed.”
Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, both 21, are accused of aggravated rape for the alleged events that occurred on the night of July 6-7 in a hotel room in Mendoza, where the French rugby team had played a match against Argentina’s Los Pumas.
The players claim that their sexual relations with the complainant, a woman they met in a nightclub, were consensual and deny any type of violence.
They are currently in France after having been detained for just over a month, first in Buenos Aires and then in Mendoza. The prosecution granted them freedom in August and permission to return to their country on Monday after finding that the complainant’s initial accusation “has lost strength.”
More accusations
The complainant pointed to Argentina’s lead defense attorney, Rafael Cúneo Libarona –brother of Argentina’s Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona–, for having “denigrated” her and calling her a “VIP prostitute.”
“This lawyer is mentally ill and I am going to file charges against him for all the professional errors he has committed,” the woman added, after Cúneo Libaron said on Tuesday that he was considering suing her.
The woman also described the players as “rotten apples of rugby” who left her with injuries: “Today I have to undergo rehabilitation on both legs, knees, calves. No less than 60 sessions of kinesiology. I am still feeling the effects of the injuries they have caused me on my body.”
