Report by Graham Tearse
A 32 year-old French writer, Tristane Banon, is this week filing a complaint against former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempting to rape her in 2003, her lawyer announced on Monday.
"My client Tristane Banon is filing a complaint for attempted rape against Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn," lawyer David Koubbi announced in an interview with the website of French weekly news magazine L'Express on Monday. "I am sending the formal complaint tomorrow Tuesday July 5th to the prosecutor's office who will receive it on Wednesday."
Banon, a writer and freelance journalist, is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn's second wife, Brigitte Guillemette. The couple divorced in 1989. Banon said the alleged attack happened after she had contacted former French finance minister Strauss-Kahn for an interview for a book she was preparing in which male celebrities from the world of politics, showbiz and literature recounted their key regrets. She has publicly described fighting him off in a floor fight during what she claims was a rendezvous he prepared in an almost empty Paris apartment, when she said he behaved like a "rutting" monkey and tried to forcibly remove her clothes.
The news came just four days after New York district attorneys revealed doubts over the credibility of a hotel chambermaid who accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in the city's Sofitel hotel on May 14th.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested immediately after the alleged events and is currently charged with seven offences, including attempted rape. He appeared at a hurriedly-convened court hearing on Friday when he was freed from house arrest and a $2 million-dollar bail guarantee after prosecutors announced the alleged victim, a 32 year-old woman, had notably lied about several key issues regarding the case and her personal circumstances.
The turnaround in the New York case has led to speculation in France that Strauss-Kahn, 62, who until his arrest was viewed as a likely socialist candidate in the French presidential elections in 2012, could be swiftly cleared of the charges and return to France. Several of those close to Strauss-Kahn in the Socialist Party have hinted that he might soon return to a political role in the country.
"Together with my client we took our decision before the development of July 1st, meaning as of mid-June," Koubbi told lexpress.fr, referring to the court hearing last Friday in New York when the district attorneys' doubts over his alleged victim were officially revealed."
"I took the necessary time because I did not want to be used by the American justice system," he claimed.
"What is happening in the United States does not concern us, I repeat. If the prosecution case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn is empty, ours is not. It is extremely solid and detailed."
'He wasn't frightened by the word rape'
On May 16th, two days after Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York, Koubbi announced to the French media that Banon intended lodging a complaint for the alleged assault that she said took place in February 2003. On May 20th he then told French rolling TV news channel BFM-TV that the decision whether or not to file the complaint had been postponed.
"In no manner whatsoever does either Tristane Banon or myself wish to be used in any way by the American justice system," he told the channel, "nor to lend any hand so that these two cases are linked in one way or another."
Banon's claims have received wide coverage in France and abroad since the former IMF Managing Director's arrest in New York. However, the allegations she has leveled against Strauss-Kahn were well known in political and media circles, beginning in 2003, as revealed by Mediapart in May (see article here ) when senior Socialist party figures confirmed they were made aware early on of the claims.
Banon spoke in detail about the alleged assault during a TV programme in 2007, when her pronunciation of Strauss-Kahn's name was concealed by a studi-added 'bleep'. She said the apartment where the two met on Strauuss-Kahn's invitation was empty save for "a video-recorder, a TV, a bed beyond, and bare wooden beams". She told the progamme that "to reply, he wanted me to hold his hand, then his arm" and said the situation then degenerated. "We finished up in a fight, we fought on the ground, I gave out kicks, he undid my bra, he tried to take off my jeans. When we fought, I mentioned the word ‘rape' to scare him. It didn't frighten him."
Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, a Normandy Socialist party regional councilor, has repeatedly and publicly backed her daughter's account. Mansouret said it was she who persuaded Banon not to file a complaint at the time of the events.
The alleged attack was also referred to in several recent books about Strauss-Kahn written before his arrest in the US (see Mediapart article here).
She repeated her claims in 2009 in a video interview with the website AgoraVox, only this time Strauss-Kahn's name was not concealed.
Under French law, an investigation into attempted rape can be opened within a maximum of ten years between the date of the alleged events and the moment a complaint is filed.