NAFISSATOU DIALLO, the 32-year-old hotel maid from Guinea who accuses the former head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her on May 14th, has recounted the ordeal publicly for the first time, in an interview with Newsweekpublished yesterday.
A second interview, with ABC television, was scheduled for broadcast last night and tonight.
Ms Diallo, who cannot read or write in any language, said she wanted to correct the misleading portrayal of her in the media. She disputes the prosecutor’s report on June 30th which noted discrepancies in her account of the attempted rape.
“I tell them about what this man do to me. It never changed. I know what this man do to me,” she said.
Mr Strauss-Kahn will return to court next Monday, August 1st, amid widespread speculation that seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault could be dismissed after the prosecution admitted to serious doubts about Ms Diallo's credibility. But Newsweeksays prosecutors are weeks away from a decision.
On May 14th, Ms Diallo says she entered presidential suite 2806 at the Sofitel in Manhattan calling out “Hello? Houskeeping”. Mr Strauss-Kahn appeared naked, and she said, “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry” and turned to leave.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Ms Diallo says Mr Strauss-Kahn replied. He seemed “like a crazy man to me” as he grabbed her breasts and slammed the door shut. Ms Diallo is 5ft 10in tall and of sturdy build. But she was reluctant to fight Mr Strauss-Kahn, she said, because she was afraid she would lose her job if she hurt him.
“You’re beautiful,” Ms Diallo said Mr Strauss-Kahn said as he wrestled her towards the bed. She asked him to stop. “You’re not going to lose your job,” he told her when she said she was afraid. Ms Diallo was paid $25 an hour, and took pride in having been assigned a whole floor to clean.
Ms Diallo said Mr Strauss-Kahn pulled her dress up, ripped her pantyhose and grabbed her crotch so hard that he injured her. He then shoved her into the bathroom where he forced her to perform oral sex. She spit out his sperm, which police investigators later found and DNA-tested. She ran into the hallway. “I was standing there spitting. I was so alone. I was so scared,” she said.
When Mr Strauss-Kahn left the room a few minutes later, they exchanged looks but did not speak.
It was always going to be the word of the highly educated, wealthy and powerful Mr Strauss-Kahn, backed up by the best lawyers money can buy, against that of an illiterate African hotel maid.
Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers claim the sexual encounter was consensual. They hired private investigators to discredit Ms Diallo.
Ms Diallo's lawyers are suing the New York Postfor reporting that she worked part-time as a prostitute. "Because of him they call me a prostitute," Ms Diallo told Newsweek. "I want him to go to jail. I want him to know there are some places you cannot use your power, you cannot use your money."
On June 30th, the prosecution took the unusual step of making public its doubts about Ms Diallo’s reliability. She had lied on an application for asylum in the US, and to obtain subsidised housing. She falsely claimed a friend’s child as an income tax deduction.
After Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, Ms Diallo allegedly had a telephone conversation with Amara Tarawally, a convicted drug dealer from Sierra Leone who is imprisoned in Arizona after he was busted for paying $40,000 in cash for 100lbs of marijuana.
“Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,” she is reported to have told Mr Tarawally in Fulani, the African language that is her native tongue.
Her lawyers claim the conversation was paraphrased and poorly translated.
According to Newsweek, a hotel concierge says Mr Strauss-Kahn made an unwanted advance to her the night before the alleged assault on Ms Diallo. Hotel cameras caught a blond American businesswoman going upstairs with Mr Strauss-Kahn at 1.26am.
The French magazine Le Pointreported this month that Mr Strauss-Kahn told his wife he had sex with three women on May 13th and 14th as "a last glass before hitting the road for the presidential campaign".
The New York prosecutor’s office has asked French authorities for permission to question Tristane Banon, the 32-year-old French writer who filed a lawsuit against Mr Strauss-Kahn earlier this month for attempted rape in 2003.
In a 2007 television interview, Ms Banon described Mr Strauss-Kahn coming after her like "a chimpanzee in rut". She told the New York Timesthat filing the lawsuit was "a liberation; the most liberating and violent thing I've ever done in my life".
But like Ms Diallo, Ms Banon risks being destroyed by her accusations against Mr Strauss-Kahn. If she loses, she said, “I’ll have to live with this, but I’ll live badly.”