LAWYERS REPRESENTING the two women who claim Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape them have met for the first time in New York, raising the prospect they will join forces to strengthen their cases against the former International Monetary Fund boss.
David Koubbi, who represents Tristane Banon, the French writer who alleges Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2003, flew on Tuesday to New York for the meeting with Kenneth Thompson, representing the hotel maid whose accusation led to the arrest in May. The pair met in the offices of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, who is heading the case against Mr Strauss-Kahn.
Details of their discussions are not known.
The seven charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn by the American prosecution have looked shaky ever since the Guinean-born maid’s credibility was questioned after it was found she had made false statements to immigration authorities in the US.
News of the three-hour meeting came as a shock in France, where Mr Koubbi has repeatedly insisted he did not want the two cases linked. Ms Banon only launched her lawsuit after it appeared the American case was falling apart.
“Neither Tristane Banon nor I want to be used by the American justice system, or give any support whatsoever to the idea that the two cases are linked in any way whatsoever,” he said after Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. “If they want the support of Tristane Banon, it will be categorically refused.” Earlier this month he again stressed his opposition to the cases being linked. “There are two cases, clearly, and each case has to be treated in isolation according to the laws of the country concerned,” he told Paris Match magazine.
After meeting Mr Vance and Mr Thompson, Mr Koubbi did not comment on his volte face.
Mr Strauss-Kahn is now facing two separate attempted rape allegations either side of the Atlantic.
In America, he is accused of assaulting a 32-year-old hotel chambermaid when she arrived to clean his suite at the Sofitel hotel in New York in May, hours before he was due to fly to France to launch his bid to become president in next year’s elections.
Police arrested him on an Air France flight as it was preparing to take off for Paris.
In France, Ms Banon claims she was forced to flee after he tried to rape her when she went to interview him for a book she was writing, in February 2003. She says he locked her in a Paris apartment and leapt on her like a “rutting chimpanzee”.
Mr Strauss-Kahn has denied attacking the maid and was released from house arrest earlier this month after questions were raised about her credibility.
He has also denied attacking Ms Banon, who is now 32. His Paris lawyers have launched a countersuit against the writer for defamation. American prosecutors will not be able to use Ms Banon’s case to discredit Mr Strauss-Kahn’s character but must prove its “pertinence” to the case.
After the meeting in New York, Mr Thompson said: “I just want justice for the victim. I want her to be able to tell the world what Dominique Strauss-Kahn did to her in a hotel room. That is important.
“The truth is that she was sexually assaulted in that room, and the truth matters and we want Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be held accountable.”
The affair threatens to further poison France’s political scene, with news that police want to question Francois Hollande, the man who has replaced Mr Strauss-Kahn as the frontrunner to be the Socialist party’s presidential candidate, about what he knew of the alleged attack on Ms Banon.
Mr Hollande told French journalists he had “nothing to hide” and said it was unacceptable for the affair to be used as a political weapon. He was referring to a report in the right-of-centre Le Figaro newspaper that police planned to quiz him in September, one month before the Socialist party votes to elect a candidate.
“I do not accept that it is manipulated or manoeuvred into an instrument of political debate.”
Mr Hollande has denied allegations by Ms Banon’s mother Anne Mansouret, a Socialist party regional representative, that he knew of the assault on her daughter. He said Ms Mansouret had called him and spoken of an “incident” between Mr Strauss-Kahn and Ms Banon, but gave him “no detail” whatsoever. “I replied that if her daughter had had a problem, the best solution was for her to speak to the police,” he told journalists during a campaign visit to Dijon. – (Guardian service)