EPA Dogged by scandal: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seen with his wife and leading French journalist Anne Sinclair
- The New York hotel maid accusing IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault has picked him out of a line-up, police revealed tonight.
A spokesman for the New York Police Department said that Strauss-Kahn and five men of a similar height, weight and appearance were asked to stand on parade whilst the woman stood the other side of a one-way mirror.
The victim said: 'That's him' in a 'clear confident voice,' the spokesman said.
The French presidential candidate is set to appear in court this evening to answer to charges including attempted rape. Police made the revelations as his wife said she ‘does not believe for a second’ the allegations made against her husband.
Anne Sinclair, 63, a French journalist, made it clear she would be sticking by the 62-year-old, despite him being charge with a range of crimes including attempted rape.
Calling for ‘decency and restraint’ in the scandal's coverage, she said: ‘I don't believe for one second the accusations made against my husband. I have no doubt that his innocence will be established.’
Strauss-Kahn, 62, previously nicknamed 'The Great Seducer' by the French media, was about to fly to Paris when police boarded the Air France jet at New York’s Kennedy Airport yesterday.
Prosecutors confirmed Strauss-Kahn has been charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York City, police said. Strauss-Kahn is expected to be brought before a state court judge later today, as more details emerged about the woman making the accusation.
'He denies all the charges against him,' his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said. 'That's all I can really say right now.'
At 4.45pm yesterday plain clothes detectives from the New York Port Authority, which polices the airport, boarded the plane, Air France Flight 23, ten minutes before it was scheduled to leave, and took Strauss-Kahn into custody.
When he was approached in the first-class cabin on the plane by authorities, he said: 'What is this about?' and was taken off the aircraft without handcuffs, law-enforcement sources said.
He left his mobile phone and other personal items in his hotel room, police told the New York Post. A police spokesman added that Strauss-Kahn appeared to have fled the hotel after the incident. 'It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,' he said.
It was not clear why Strauss-Kahn was in New York. The IMF is based in Washington D.C. and he was due in Germany on Sunday. Strauss-Kahn was taken to the offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which deals with sex-related crimes and was being questioned by detectives last night.
The maid was taken by police to a local hospital. She told police she was asked to clean the spacious $3,000-a-night suite, which she was told was empty.
She then alleges Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a bathroom, chased her down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and began sexually assaulting her, at one point attempting to force her to perform oral sex.
'The housekeeper went into the room and Mr Strauss-Kahn emerged from bathroom naked,' an NYPD spokesman said.
'He grabbed the woman and pulled her into the bedroom and locked the door and then attempted to sexually assault her.
'She managed to get free but he pulled her back, pulled off her trousers and sexually assaulted her.
'The woman managed again to get away and out the door and went to security and told the what happened.
'Mr Strauss-Kahn checked out a short while after that'.
The spokesman added that Strauss-Kahn has been charged with attempted rape, carrying out a criminal sex act and unlawful imprisonment. John Sheehan, a spokesman for the hotel, said its staff were cooperating with the authorities in the investigation.
Strauss-Kahn, who is married to a leading French television news reporter, Anne Sinclair, had been considered a leading contender to run on the socialist party’s ticket against President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s French elections.
Yesterday far right presidential contender Marine Le Pen said his bid for the top job was now 'doomed'. A French government spokesman said today it was important to remain cautious and reserve judegment over the arrest of Strauss-Kahn.
'We have to be extremely prudent in analysis, comments and consequences,' he told France 2 television. The spokesman added that the government's position was to respect the presumption of innocence.
Strauss-Kahn has been dogged by scandal. In 2008 he was embroiled in controversy over accusations that he had had a sexual relationship with one of his subordinates, Piroska Nagy, senior official in the IMF’s Africa Department.
The IMF hired a law firm to launch an investigation. Ms Nagy left the fund and joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
He was cleared of harassment, favouritism and abuse of power following an inquiry - and kept his job, though he later apologised for an ‘error of judgement’.
Strauss-Kahn, who was rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained international recognition as France’s finance minister from 1997-99.
He is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by reducing its deficit and persuading then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to sign up to an EU pact of fiscal prudence.
A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn joined the Socialist party in 1976 and was elected to parliament in 1986 from the Val-d’Oise district, north of Paris.
He went on to become mayor of Sarcelles, a working-class immigrant suburb of Paris. Hours before Strauss-Kahn was pulled from the flight, a close Socialist Party ally claimed he was the target of a smear campaign by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
'There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr. Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn,' Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.
Formed at the end of World War II, the IMF provides low-cost loans to countries in financial crisis. After 2008, it became increasingly significant after brokering rescue packages for countries like Greece, Pakistan, Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine.
France could face a 'political earthquake' after the arrest of presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The brilliant economist had been widely tipped to replace unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy as head of state.
He was seen as the strongest potential challenger to the conservative Mr Sarkozy in next year's presidential elections, despite not announcing his candidacy. Unless the charges are quickly dropped, they could destroy his chances in a presidential race that is just starting to heat up.
The allegations over his arrest in New York dominated special editions of Paris newspapers and there was also blanket coverage on TV and radio. It is unclear how damaging the allegations could be. A poll for Le Parisien gave him 41 per cent of the votes among supporters of the Socialist Party.
'At the top of the polls,' Strauss-Kahn tweeted proudly in French last December, linking an article that showed him ahead in opinion polls when French voters were asked whom they would choose in a primary.
At a soccer game in a Washington suburb last September, he, his wife and others were seen wearing T-shirts that read, 'Yes we Kahn'.
Strauss-Kahn also noted that he trailed only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on a list of 100 'global thinkers' compiled last November by Foreign Policy magazine.
He was cited for his 'steely vision at a moment of crisis' - for convincing Germany to help bail out Greece's debt-laden government, and for helping to put the brakes on defaults in Hungary, Pakistan and Ukraine.
The arrest could throw the long-divided Socialists back into disarray about who they could present as Sarkozy's opponent. Even some of his adversaries were stunned.
'It's totally hallucinating. If it is true, this would be a historic moment, but in the negative sense, for French political life,' said Dominique Paille, a political rival to Strauss-Kahn on the centre right, on BFM television.
Still, he urged, 'I hope that everyone respects the presumption of innocence. I cannot manage to believe this affair.'
Candidates need to announce their intentions this summer to run in fall primary elections.
'If he's cleared, he could return - but if he is let off only after four or five months, he won't be able to run' because the campaign will be too far along, said Jerome Fourquet of the IFOP polling agency.
'I think his political career is over,' Philippe Martinat, who wrote a book called DSK-Sarkozy: The Duel, told The Associated Press.
'Behind him he has other affairs ... I don't see very well how he can pick himself back up.'
source:kompas.com


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