Ex-IMF chief to walk free as sex scandal collapses

sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt due to the alleged victim’s lies.

At 1530, Judge Michael Obus was expected to rubber-stamp a motion to dismiss all charges against Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund and shelve his French presidential dreams.

The 62-year-old politician, who had been touted to oust President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 elections, would be free to return to France with millionaire wife Anne Sinclair, although his reputation has been badly sullied.

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The sensational case garnered world attention on May 14 when Strauss-Kahn was escorted by New York police from his first class seat on an Air France plane moments before its departure for Paris.

As pictures of the respected international banker, shackled and unshaven, were beamed around the globe, it emerged that he stood accused of the brutal attempted rape of a hotel chambermaid in his plush Manhattan suite.

The case began to unravel weeks later when prosecutors announced that the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, had been caught lying on her asylum application form, including about a gang rape she had suffered back home in Guinea.
In addition, she was said to have discussed Strauss-Kahn’s wealth in a telephone conversation with a Guinean friend currently held in a US prison, and to have changed sworn testimony to the grand jury considering the case.

In their 25-page motion filed on Monday asking the judge to dismiss all charges, prosecutors said “their cumulative effect would be devastating.” Diallo was “persistently, and at times inexplicably, untruthful in describing matters of both great and small significance,” they said.

“The nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter” at the hotel. Although there was forensic and medical evidence that suggested a forcible encounter, the assistant district attorneys handling the case, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon and John McConnell, said their motion made no factual findings.

“We simply no longer have confidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty,” they said.
In a “he-said, she-said” case, a jury needs to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and, legal experts say. – AFP.