Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Benjamin Cremel / DPPI via AFP 15:52 pm, July 21, 2023

Two Parisian investigating judges on Thursday closed the investigation for rape against actor Ary Abittan, a day after granting him the more favorable status of assisted witness, AFP learned Friday from a source close to the case.

The actor, aged 49 and known for having played in the comedy What did we do to the good god?, had been indicted for rape in November 2021 by an investigating judge. He is accused by a young woman, then 23 years old, whom he had been dating for two months at the time of the facts, of having imposed sodomy on him during a sexual intercourse at his home in October 2021.

But reversal in the procedure: Wednesday, two magistrates granted him the more favorable status of assisted witness, in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution. These investigating judges considered that new elements, collected after the indictment of the actor, were "likely to weaken the probative value of the evidence initially retained", according to elements of the order of which AFP has been aware.

"A respectful sexual partner"

If the magistrates recognized the "indisputable" post-traumatic stress of the young woman after the fact, they consider "not possible to conclude that the traumatic injuries and bleeding" of the complainant "result from an act of non-consensual sexual penetration" because the two said they had a first consensual intercourse, and that the bleeding "pre-existed, at least in part, to the second report at issue".

They also cited testimonies from former girlfriends of Ary Abittan who described him as "a respectful sexual partner", as well as psychiatric and psychological assessments that did not "reveal personality elements in favor of deviant sexuality or aggressive sexual urges".

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During the investigation, the woman had described the actor as "obsessed" with the practice of sodomy but said that he had, until then, always accepted her refusal. That night, she claims to have first said "not tonight", then "screamed in pain" during the act.

Contacted Wednesday, the lawyer of the complainant, Me Arash Derambarsh, had not wished to speak "to preserve the secrecy of the investigation". On Thursday, after several press articles echoing the change of status of Ary Abittan, he filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor's office for violation of the secrecy of the investigation and investigation.