PARIS: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn plans to sue for slander a 32-year-old French woman who said she will file an attempted rape complaint against him, his lawyers said Monday.
French journalist and writer Tristane Banon, who once branded Strauss-Kahn a "rutting chimpanzee", indicated she would send "a complaint for attempted rape" against him to prosecutors, likely on Tuesday, her lawyer David Koubbi told the news magazine L'Express on its website.
But Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from his post at the IMF after being charged with sexual assault in New York, fired back that he had taken note of Banon's claims but dismissed them as "imaginary", his lawyers Henri Leclerc and Frederique Baulieu told in a statement.
They said they "were in the process of compiling a libel complaint against her."
The prospect of a new criminal complaint against Strauss-Kahn came as the case in New York, where he was recently released from house arrest on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid, looked set to collapse after prosecutors revealed they had doubts about the credibility of his accuser.
Noting the developments in New York, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said Banon's complaint "comes at a time when the untruthful nature of the accusations he faces in the United States are no longer in any doubt."
Koubbi told that Banon "took that decision because she endured what she accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of and in France as elsewhere when you are a victim of an attempted rape, you must file a complaint."
Banon herself told the L'Express website that "today, seeing Strauss-Kahn freed (from house arrest) then afterward dining in a fancy restaurant with friends, that makes me sick."
In February 2007, Banon was a guest on a television chat show and recounted how a senior politician a few years before had lured her to a virtually empty apartment in the guise of agreeing to give an interview and then assaulted her.
In the broadcast version of Banon's comments the name of the politician was bleeped out, but a year later Banon confirmed to the AgoraVox website that she was referring to Strauss-Kahn. (AFP)
French journalist and writer Tristane Banon, who once branded Strauss-Kahn a "rutting chimpanzee", indicated she would send "a complaint for attempted rape" against him to prosecutors, likely on Tuesday, her lawyer David Koubbi told the news magazine L'Express on its website.
But Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from his post at the IMF after being charged with sexual assault in New York, fired back that he had taken note of Banon's claims but dismissed them as "imaginary", his lawyers Henri Leclerc and Frederique Baulieu told in a statement.
They said they "were in the process of compiling a libel complaint against her."
The prospect of a new criminal complaint against Strauss-Kahn came as the case in New York, where he was recently released from house arrest on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid, looked set to collapse after prosecutors revealed they had doubts about the credibility of his accuser.
Noting the developments in New York, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said Banon's complaint "comes at a time when the untruthful nature of the accusations he faces in the United States are no longer in any doubt."
Koubbi told that Banon "took that decision because she endured what she accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of and in France as elsewhere when you are a victim of an attempted rape, you must file a complaint."
Banon herself told the L'Express website that "today, seeing Strauss-Kahn freed (from house arrest) then afterward dining in a fancy restaurant with friends, that makes me sick."
In February 2007, Banon was a guest on a television chat show and recounted how a senior politician a few years before had lured her to a virtually empty apartment in the guise of agreeing to give an interview and then assaulted her.
In the broadcast version of Banon's comments the name of the politician was bleeped out, but a year later Banon confirmed to the AgoraVox website that she was referring to Strauss-Kahn. (AFP)
Source: The News
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