Strauss-Kahn accuser speaks out
The New York hotel maid who accuses former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempting to rape her has spoken publicly for the first time to US media to deny claims she is a prostitute.
32-year-old Guninean maid Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine and ABC News that she has told the truth about the incident on 14 May.
It is the first time she has chosen to talk publicly since accusing Mr Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in the Sofitel hotel.
He is charged with seven counts, including four more serious felony charges – two of criminal sexual acts, one of attempted rape and one of sexual abuse – plus three misdemeanour offences, including unlawful imprisonment.
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, denies all charges against him.
“I want justice. I want him to go to jail,” Ms Diallo said in excerpts from the television interview released on Sunday.
“I want him to know that there is some places you cannot use your money, you cannot use your power, when you do something like this,” Ms Diallo said.
Diallo said she saw Mr Strauss-Kahn appear naked in front of her when she opened the door to his suite. He was like “a crazy man to me”, she said.
“You’re beautiful,” she reported Mr Strauss-Kahn as saying, and said he attacked her despite her protestations.
In a statement on Sunday, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers called the interview a last-ditch effort by the maid and her lawyers to extract money from the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
She is “the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money”, lawyers Benjamin Brafman and William Taylor said.
Her credibility was thrown into question when Manhattan prosecutors leaked details claiming Diallo told authorities numerous lies.
Read more: Q and A - the Strauss-Kahn scandal