A new chapter in the legal ordeal of Dominique Strauss-Kahn opened in France yesterday when a young writer filed formal charges accusing him of attempting to rape her in Paris eight years ago.
Lawyers for Tristane Banon, 32, said she was determined that the former head of the International Monetary Fund would be prosecuted for the alleged assault whatever the outcome of the crumbling attempted rape case against him in New York.
“We are not going to let go,” David Koubbi, Ms Banon’s lawyer, told reporters after depositing her complaint with prosecutors in Paris. “These deeds must be judged, whether he is Strauss-Kahn or not, and I hope that this will lead to the high criminal court.”
It is expected to take prosecutors months to decide whether to proceed over the accusation without witnesses or material evidence. Mr Strauss-Kahn has dismissed the allegations and vowed to press charges of criminal defamation against Ms Banon.
The incident allegedly took place in early 2003 but Ms Banon has said that she was dissuaded from going to the police at the time by her mother, a fellow Socialist Party politician who feared that the scandal could end Mr Strauss-Kahn’s political career. Socialist allies expressed fury at the development, a further blow to their hopes of resurrecting Mr Strauss-Kahn’s attempt to topple Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election next year.
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Mr Strauss-Kahn, the former front-runner, is thought unlikely to rejoin the race even if New York prosecutors drop charges against him over claims that he assaulted a chambermaid in a Manhattan hotel. He reportedly told Martine Aubry, the party leader and primary candidate, that he no longer had any intention of seeking the presidency.
Cyrus Vance Jr, the district attorney, is expected to drop all charges, according to US media reports, possibly before the next scheduled court hearing on July 18, amid serious concerns about the accuser’s credibility.
Lawyers for the unnamed chambermaid have filed papers suing the New York Post and five of its journalists over a series of articles claiming that she was a prostitute.
Mr Strauss-Kahn’s Socialist allies accused Ms Banon of seeking to profit from sabotaging his career. “This is manipulation by a young woman who wants to extort funds from Dominique through a rape complaint,” the MP Jean-Christophe Cambadélis said.