NEW YORK – New York prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss sexual assault charges against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday, a stunning reversal that could revive the political future of a man many had seen as the next president of France.
Prosecutors gave up hope they could convict Mr Strauss-Kahn after losing faith in their star witness, Nafissatou Diallo (32), a hotel maid from Guinea who alleged that Mr Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom of his luxury suite on May 14th and forced her to perform oral sex.
Mr Strauss-Kahn (62) had vehemently declared his innocence. Some political supporters were convinced the allegations were part of a set-up meant to destroy his chances of unseating French president Nicolas Sarkozy in next April’s election. Though he is free to return to French politics, his image was damaged and the Socialist party would have to make an exception to allow him into the presidential race at this late date. A poll released in July showed two-thirds of French people do not want him to be a candidate.
Mr Strauss-Kahn also still faces a civil lawsuit that Ms Diallo filed against him on August 8th and a complaint from a French writer who said he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview.
After detectives pulled him off the first-class section of a Paris-bound jet on the day of the purported attack, his arrest sent shockwaves across the globe.
Charming and multilingual, the silver-haired Strauss-Kahn had gained esteem for reforming the International Monetary Fund as managing director, injecting it with transparency and accountability. Then his stature took a mighty fall.
Ms Diallo, painted a vivid picture of what she said happened in Suite 2806 of the Sofitel hotel near Times Square, saying a naked Strauss-Kahn chased her down a hall and into the bedroom and forced her to perform oral sex.
She said she broke free and that he dragged her into a bathroom where he forced himself on her again. But her credibility was later thrown into question when prosecutors revealed she had told authorities numerous lies, including fabricating a story about being gang-raped in Guinea in order to gain US asylum. She also changed details of her story about what happened following the purported assault.
US media at first kept her identity secret, respecting a practice not to name sexual assault accusers, until she came forward in an interview with Newsweekmagazine and ABC News in late July.
“I want justice. I want him to go to jail. I want him to know that there is some place you cannot use your money, you cannot use your power, when you do something like this,” she said in the ABC interview. According to her lawyers, prosecutors said they turned up a recorded conversation between Ms Diallo and a man detained in an Arizona jail in which, speaking in the West African dialect Fulani, she said “words to the effect” that “this guy has a lot of money. I know what I am doing”.
Such a conversation could provide Mr Strauss-Kahn’s defence lawyers with ammunition to attack Ms Diallo’s motives, although she denied referring to his wealth and her lawyers said the quote was not on the tape, according to an interpreter hired by prosecutors.
– (Reuters)