irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Monday, May 16, 2011, 17:02
A French lawyer said today his client was considering filing a legal complaint against IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn over an alleged sexual incident almost a decade ago.
Lawyer David Koubbi said his client Tristane Banon, a writer, could file a complaint over an alleged incident that took place when she went to interview Mr Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, in an apartment.
"We are considering filing a complaint," Mr Koubbi said.
Mr Strauss-Kahn was charged in New York at the weekend with sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid. His lawyer said he would plead not guilty.
The alleged attack on Ms Banon happened in 2002. Under French law, sexual assault charges must be filed within three years but attempted rape charges can be brought up to 10 years after the alleged attack.
A graphic description of the alleged attack, recounted by Ms Banon on a 2007 television programme, was posted on the internet and widely quoted and commented upon in French blogs and websites.
In the clip Ms Banon, who was 22 at the time of the incident, says she had asked to talk to Mr Strauss-Kahn for a book of interviews with leading French figures about the "biggest mistake you ever made".
She told how he had insisted on holding her hand during the interview and then made advances to her. There was no independent confirmation of her version of events.
"It ended really badly. We ended up fighting. It finished really violently," the clip shows her saying. "We fought on the floor. It wasn't a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans," she said.
The politician acted, she said, like a "rutting chimpanzee".
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0516/breaking27.html?via=rel
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