A Guinean woman who has accused former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel was on the offensive yesterday, saying she wanted him to go to jail.
“Because of him, they call me a prostitute,” Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.
“I want him to go to jail. I want him to know there are some places you cannot use your power, you cannot use your money,” Diallo said.
Photo: Reuters/ABC
She was fighting back against allegations that appeared in the US media, after New York prosecutors openly questioned her credibility, saying she had changed her story and lied on her asylum application.
There were also media reports of possible links to criminal activities and that she was recorded speaking by telephone with a boyfriend jailed for possessing marijuana and discussing the benefits of pursuing charges.
Diallo has not been seen in public since the alleged attack and said she was whisked away to a hotel with her 15-year-old daughter and not allowed to return to her apartment for two months.
She was also due to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America yesterday, exactly a week before Strauss-Kahn is due back in court in New York on Monday for his next hearing on seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault.
“I want justice. I want him to go to jail,” Diallo told ABC.
“God is my witness. I’m telling the truth. From my heart. God knows that. And he knows that,” she said, according to excerpts of the interview.
Seeking to address some of the prosecutors concerns, she told Newsweek she did not have any boyfriends, just friends who had taken advantage of her, and she had mistakenly trusted one enough to give him access to her bank accounts.
She admitted “mistakes” to ABC, but insisted that her account of what happened inside the hotel room has remained the same even if the timeline surrounding the circumstances of when she ran away changed because she had been disorientated.
However, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers on Sunday renewed a call for the charges to be dismissed, accusing the 32-year-old illiterate immigrant of organizing an unprecedented media campaign and trying to “inflame public opinion.”
The maid’s attorney in turn accused the former-IMF chief’s team of engaging in a “smear campaign” replete with “baseless” and “contemptible” attacks.
“They are defense attorneys and clearly believe that these types of false personal attacks are part of their job description,” Kenneth Thompson said.
The former French politician once seen as a leading contender to become the next president of France has denied all the charges arising from the May 14 incident.
However, the allegations in the US have also prompted a French writer, Tristane Banon, to accuse Strauss-Kahn — who had earned a reputation as a womanizer — of attempted rape in 2003.
He has denied having any detailed knowledge of that attack, but it led to top fellow Socialist presidential hopeful Francois Hollande being quizzed by police last week.
Strauss-Kahn’s US accuser was working as a chamber maid when she says she was attacked in a suite on the Sofitel’s 28th floor.
The maid told Newsweek she had called out “Hello, housekeeping” as she entered the room, before a naked man with white hair appeared.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
And she turned to leave.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” the man allegedly replied.
However, he was like “a crazy man to me,” Diallo said.
She said the man clutched her breasts and slammed the door. He allegedly then pushed her to her knees, gripped her head and tried to force his penis into her mouth.
“He was moving and making a noise. He was going like ‘uhh, uhh, uhh,’” Diallo said.
“I got up. I was spitting. I run. I run out of there. I don’t turn back. I run to the hallway. I was so nervous. I was so scared. I didn’t want to lose my job,” she said.
She said the whole incident took less than 15 minutes and as she hid in the corridor trying to compose herself, she saw him come out of his room dressed, with his luggage. He nodded at her and then stared straight ahead, saying nothing.
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