An Argentine court on Tuesday dropped aggravated sexual assault charges against two professional French rugby players accused of raping a woman after playing a match in the country earlier this year.
The judge in Mendoza, some 1,000km (620 miles) west of the capital, Buenos Aires, dismissed the case against the 21-year-old athletes, Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, citing insufficient evidence.
“The facts under investigation do not constitute a crime,” the court said.
The case began in July, when a 39-year-old Argentine woman filed a police complaint alleging that she was beaten, choked and repeatedly raped by the rugby players in their Mendoza hotel room.
The rugby players have admitted to having sex with the plaintiff — whom they met at during an alcohol-fuelled club night after their July 7 victory against Argentina’s Pumas — but insisted that the encounter was consensual. They were held in preventive custody, then placed under house arrest, for a month.
The defence said the dismissal reinforced their faith in the justice system.
“I think it will be a turning point,” German Hnatow, a lawyer representing one of the two players, told Radio Mitre Mendoza, a local radio station. “There are many false accusations in terms of sexual crimes, in terms of gender violence, which cause harm.”
The plaintiff can appeal against the ruling. She has not said whether she intends to and her dlawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the past few months, the case slowly unravelled as the defence punched holes in the woman’s description of events.
Citing questionable evidence presented before the court — including WhatsApp voice messages the plaintiff sent to her friend joking and boasting about the rough sex she had with them — the prosecution in September approved the athletes’ return to France under certain conditions.
The plaintiff’s lawyer has explained any inconsistencies in her account as the result of her “shock and extreme stress”.
She underwent physical examinations as part of the investigation and was found to have an acute bleeding ulcer and other injuries that she claimed were related to her assault.
The French Rugby Federation expressed its “relief and satisfaction” with the judge’s decision. It said the athletes, who had been suspended because of the seriousness of the allegations, would be eligible to return to the national team “if their sporting performances allow for it”.
