A Guinean woman who accused former International Monetery Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel has broken her silence, saying she wants him to go to jail and to clear her name, Igihe.com has learnt.
“Because of him, they call me a prostitute,” she told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.
“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.”
She was fighting back against allegations that appeared in the US media, after New York prosecutors openly questioned her credibility, saying she had changed her story and lied on her asylum application.
There were also media reports of possible links to criminal activities and that she was recorded speaking by phone with a boyfriend jailed for possessing marijuana and discussing the benefits of pursuing charges.
The woman has not been seen in public since the alleged attack and said she was whisked away to a hotel with her 15-year-old daughter and not allowed to return to her apartment for two months.
She was also due to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday, exactly a week before Strauss-Kahn is due back in court in New York on August 1 for his next hearing on seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault.
“God is my witness. I’m telling the truth from my heart. God knows that. And he knows that,” the woman said, according to excerpts released on Sunday.
Boyfriends
Seeking to address some of the prosecutors concerns, she told Newsweek she did not have any boyfriends, just friends who had taken advantage of her, and she had mistakenly trusted one enough to give him access to her bank accounts.
She admitted “mistakes” to ABC but insisted that the account of what happened inside the hotel room has remained the same even if the timeline surrounding the circumstances of when she ran away changed because she had been disorientated.
But Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers Sunday renewed a call for the charges to be dismissed, accusing the 32-year-old immigrant of organizing an unprecedented media campaign and trying to “inflame public opinion.”
The maid’s attorney in turn accused the ex-IMF chief’s team of engaging in a “smear campaign” replete with “baseless” and “contemptible” attacks.
“They are defense attorneys, and clearly believe that these types of false personal attacks are part of their job description,” Kenneth Thompson said.
“But that excuse isn’t sufficient when we are dealing with a brutal sexual attack, a mountain of physical evidence, a victim who spoke out immediately, and numerous corroborating witnesses.”
The former French politician once seen as a leading contender to become the next president of France has denied all the charges arising from the May 14 incident.
But the allegations in the United States have also prompted a French writer, Tristane Banon, to accuse Strauss-Kahn who had earned a reputation as a womanizer of attempted rape in 2003.
He has denied having any detailed knowledge of that attack, but it led to top fellow Socialist presidential hopeful Francois Hollande being quizzed by police last week.
additional reporting, Agencies
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