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A Guinean woman who has accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel broke her silence Sunday, saying she wants him to go to jail and to clear her name.
"Because of him, they call me a prostitute," she told Newsweek magazine in her first public interviews 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."
The woman was also 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.
"I want justice. I want him to go to jail," she told ABC after weeks of being held incommunicado in protective custody, according to excerpts released by the television channel on Sunday.
"God is my witness I'm telling the truth. From my heart. God knows that. And he knows that," the 32-year-old woman said.
Strauss-Kahn, a French politician once seen as a leading contender to become the next president of France, has denied all the charges arising from the incident on May 14 in his luxury suite in the Sofitel hotel.
And prosecutors have openly questioned the woman's credibility after she recanted the version of events she had given to a grand jury.
In her interview with ABC, she admitted to making "mistakes" but she insists that from the beginning her account of what happened in hotel room had remained the same.
"I tell them about what this man do to me. It never changed. I know what this man do to me," she told Newsweek.
She said the man clutched at her breasts and slammed the door of the suite, and then gave a graphic account of what she says happened in the room.
But Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said Sunday the woman was trying to whip up public opinion as she gave her first media interviews.
"This conduct by lawyers is unprofessional and it violates fundamental rules of professional conduct for lawyers," Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said in a statement. "Its obvious purpose is to inflame public opinion against a defendant in a pending criminal case."
And they accused her legal team of having "orchestrated an unprecedented number of media events and rallies to bring pressure on the prosecutors in this case after she had to admit her extraordinary efforts to mislead them.
"Her lawyers know that her claim for money suffers a fatal blow when the criminal charges are dismissed, as they must be."
© 2011 Agence France-Presse
7 Comments
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chewitup
People who fight with fire really hate it when you fight back with fire.
NetteMarie
Amen! I'm glad this woman is standing up for herself.
13akio13
Her we have a rich something ,with a Judge from the same background, Who has hired many detectives to pay anyone who needs some money to say what ever the want about this poor women. In New York everone is on the take. You know from experance that the Judge will find a way to let him off. He won't send a brother to Jail. ANDREW
2020hindsights
If she wanted to stand up for herself, it would have been prudent to tell the truth in the first place...
chewitup
Not really. Rape victims can't really win either way. Look at what she lied about. Not what happened in the room. Not about the actual rape she alleges. She lied about what she did after (not counting COMPLETELY unrelated stuff about her visa). She said she stopped cleaning rooms when actually she didn't. Now we know the truth, but you know what? It does not really change anything.
chewitup
I should be more careful. I should not have accused the woman of lying about what happened after the rape. She may have gotten confused about her own actions, as often happens with victims of an attack such as she alleges.
My apologies to her.
Eric Schneider
Ah, but that's the problem, confusion. The police have recordings of the woman discussing getting a payout with a convict - that will cause confusion. Changes in testimony about what she was doing after the attack will cause confusion and will allow a defense team to question her reliability. The DA knows this. So, what was consensual, what wasn't? When it turns into a "he said / she said" the case rapidly comes unraveled. Maybe it was forced, but how would a prosecutor prove that now?