NEW YORK – A judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday after prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of his accuser.
The formal end of the case still awaited the outcome of a last-ditch emergency appeal.
New York state supreme court’s Justice Michael Obus accepted the prosecutors’ request for dismissal of all charges. The move left the man once seen as the leading contender to be next president of France close to freedom and the chance to try to rebuild his tarnished political career.
He appeared in court with his wife, Anne Sinclair, by his side and the pair left the hearing smiling amid a throng of reporters.
Mr Strauss-Kahn later issued a statement saying his life in recent months had been a “nightmare”, and that he looked forward to life returning to a level of normality.
A lawyer for the accuser, hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, had requested a special prosecutor to continue with the criminal case, but Mr Obus had earlier yesterday dismissed the request.
Ms Diallo’s lawyers appealed this decision, and Mr Obus said the court would rule on that issue later yesterday, meaning Mr Strauss-Kahn had to await that verdict before any possibility of being free to return to France.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday outlined how they had lost faith in Ms Diallo, a 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea, who alleged Mr Strauss-Kahn attacked her in his luxury hotel suite and forced her to perform oral sex.
While her account of the assault remained constant, Ms Diallo had told a series of lies about her past and about what happened immediately after the incident in the $3,000-a-night suite in New York’s Sofitel hotel on May 14th, undermining her credibility, prosecutors said.
The physical evidence available in the case did not prove lack of consent, leaving it hinging on the believability of the accuser.
Meanwhile, French writer Tristane Banon, who claims Mr Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her eight years ago, is to press on with her case, her lawyer said. Ms Banon claims Mr Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her when she went to interview him for a book she was writing in 2003.
Ms Banon (32), who was a friend of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s daughter Camille, described his behaviour as like that of “a rutting chimpanzee”. – (Reuters, Guardian service)