A 29-year-old Indian man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for running a masculinist online chat group where young girls were forced into sexual acts and pushed to mutilate and torture themselves. In this case of an unprecedented type for French justice and after five days of debates behind closed doors, the Paris Assize Court convicted Rohan Rane for a series of crimes and offenses, in particular for extortion by an organized gang with as aggravating circumstances acts of torture and barbarity committed in particular against minors. The public prosecutor's office had requested thirty years of criminal imprisonment.
Adopting a respectful demeanor, the 29-year-old young man listened to the verdict read by the president, occasionally nodding his head, his hands folded in a triangle. The investigation had painted the portrait of a nihilistic admirer of Nazism, an assumed follower of sadism and macabre ultraviolence. Especially American, the number of victims goes well beyond the six, now aged 18 to 21, who filed civil suits. Around twenty were identified, others could not be identified. They were mostly minors at the time of the events, often under the age of 15.
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According to the investigation, all fell into the clutches of this group of young men, Indian, German, New Zealander, American, steeped in nihilism, racism and anti-Semitism, Nazi aesthetics, ultraconservative values, hatred against feminists and the LGBT+ community. This group called “CVLT” or “Cult”, active on the Discord platform, came together during the Covid pandemic and Rane was its leader. Having come to France to study at a business school in Antibes (south-east) before becoming a sports coach, he is portrayed by the investigation as the “main orderer” in the videos.
“Satisfy my sadism”
Victims were often vulnerable, spotted on online chat rooms. The trap closed when they allowed themselves to be convinced to send naked photos. They were then threatened with distribution to their family, friends or school environment (“doxing”). Another means of pressure is “swatting”, the blackmail of a slanderous denunciation to trigger an intervention by the police at home. The young girls, often Jewish or black, were forced to engage in sexual acts, including with knives, to scarify themselves by carving the names of their tormentors or swastikas on their skin, according to the investigation.
Scenes accompanied by insults and laughter from the hosts, the “warlords”. Nicknamed “housewives,” victims could be encouraged to commit suicide, drink bleach or strangle themselves with a belt or leash, according to the investigation. One of these “warlords”, a 26-year-old American, was convicted in his country for kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old child in 2021. Rane, arrested in early 2021 in France, was not prosecuted for complicity in this crime, but the American judicial authorities sent a note that they attributed to him. “CVLT” is described as “an obscure and sadistic cult”, of which Rane, who prided himself on being an expert in psychological manipulation, was “the leader and founder”: “My ultimate goal is to create an inexhaustible supply of masochistic people to satisfy my sadism.”
The case was triggered in November 2020 by a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC): this American child protection organization had discovered images on the web of a 12-year-old child with her bare torso, whom an interlocutor encouraged to scarify herself by engraving the name “Rohan” on her body. Responding to an American request, the court ordered the closed session on Monday. However, against the wishes of the civil party victims who, according to their lawyer Hippolyte Marquetty, expected the trial to have an educational significance for other adolescent girls. The court had notably invoked intimidation and threats against victims, witnesses or American prosecutors. At the end of his sentence, Rane will have to leave France. The United States is calling for him to be tried in turn.
