THE LAWYER representing the maid who accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape has appeared on French television to appeal to other women with claims against the former IMF chief to come forward.
“If there is any woman out there, whether in France or in Africa, who has been sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I ask them to please call me, contact me. We want to help them. We want to talk to them,” Kenneth Thompson told France 2. He repeated the appeal on other French media.
Mr Thompson took over as the 32-year-old chambermaid’s lawyer in the past week and represented her on Monday at a court hearing where Mr Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted her at a hotel in Manhattan last month.
Mr Strauss-Kahn’s legal team deny the prosecution claim of “forcible compulsion” and say they have evidence that prove sexual contact with the maid was consensual.
Apart from the allegations made by the west African woman at the Sofitel in New York, the only public claims of sexual assault against Mr Strauss-Kahn have come from French writer Tristane Banon.
Ms Banon (31), the daughter of a Socialist Party councillor, has claimed she was assaulted by the politician in Paris in 2002 when she went to interview him for a book she was writing. The allegations were first made on French television in 2007 but they resurfaced after Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest in New York, and Mr Thompson appeared to refer to them outside court on Monday when he said: “We know of a young lady in France, don’t we?”
Ms Banon’s lawyer, David Koubbi, said last month his client was considering filing a legal complaint over the alleged incident, but he confirmed yesterday that she did not want her case linked to the US trial. He ruled out any collaboration with the New York prosecutors, telling BFM TV the two cases should be treated “in isolation, according to the laws of the relevant country”. No formal complaint has been made by Ms Banon.
In France, the fallout from Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest continues to be felt not only in the Socialist Party – now scrambling to find a candidate for next year’s presidential election – but also in a public debate about sexual equality.
Last weekend, under the headline “Routine sexism in parliament”, the Journal du Dimanche published a series of allegations by female members of parliament about crude remarks by male legislators to their women colleagues and staff.
Two weeks after Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, Georges Tron, the junior civil service minister, resigned to fight allegations of sexual harassment made by two former staff members. One of the women claimed the Strauss-Kahn case encouraged her to come forward.
Separately, prosecutors opened an inquiry last week into accusations aired on a TV talk show that another former minister engaged in acts of paedophilia in Morocco.
