Nine of them, about fifteen years old at the time of the facts, became civil parties and were recognized, for the most part, on videos filmed by the accused. Several other victims were identified but could not be identified.
During the investigation, the accused, Olivier Larroque, 60, challenged any act of coercion and asked, in vain, for the facts to be reclassified as recourse to the prostitution of minors. Contacted by AFP, his lawyer did not respond.
It was a report sent to the French Embassy in Vietnam in early 2013 that triggered the investigations. A local association reported the testimonies of street children aged 13 to 15 accusing this doctor of having forced them to perform sexual acts.
An SD memory card stolen by one of these teenagers and attached to the mail contained dozens of videos and photographs depicting sexual relations between young Asian boys and Mr. Larroque.
An investigation was then opened in France, leading to the arrest of Mr. Larroque in July 2013 at the French Hospital in Hanoi, where he had been working since the end of 2011. Deported to France during the summer of 2013, he was arrested in his plane exit.
Conducted with the Vietnamese authorities and based in particular on the computer equipment seized from the accused, the investigations of the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons made it possible to collect the testimonies of nine teenagers.
All describe a similar modus operandi: Olivier Larroque allegedly approached them on the shores of a lake in Hanoi where wandering children gravitate, called them to a hotel or to his home and abused them in front of the camera lens. camera. He then gave them 100,000 dongs, or 4 euros at the time of the events.
Faced with these testimonies, Mr. Larroque had denied any constraint, said he did not know the age of his accusers and had described himself as a simple client of prostitutes in a country where the moral barriers linked to relations with minors would be abolished.
The investigating judge considered that the accused had indeed exerted a moral constraint on these young boys in the grip of great poverty, by taking advantage of his status as a rich and Western man.
“This file is exceptional in nature because of the profession of the accused and the number of victims”, declared to AFP Me Emmanuel Daoud, on behalf of the NGO End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, civil party. “Demonstration is made that when there is international cooperation, we can bring to justice those who are accused of rape abroad.”
Another civil party, Acting against child prostitution deplored “the heaviness of the instruction” which would have allowed Mr. Larroque to enjoy “impunity for so many years”.
The verdict is expected Friday after debates that could be held behind closed doors.
