French police question Dominique Strauss-Kahn

GlobalPost

French police questioned Dominique Strauss-Kahn for three hours on Monday over accusations of attempted rape made against him by a writer.

From the Associated Press:

writer Tristane Banon accuses [Strauss-Kahn] of attacking her during a 2003 interview for a book she was writing. She claims Strauss-Kahn grabbed her hand and arm before the two fell to the floor of his apartment and fought for several minutes, with the politician trying to open her jeans and bra and putting his fingers in her mouth and underwear.

Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, returned to France last week, after a months-long saga involving separate rape charges in the United States. A New York judge formally dismissed the charges against Strauss-Kahn on August 23, at the request of New York prosecutors.
Prosecutors were concerned about the credibility of the accuser, who said Strauss-Kahn attacked her after she came to clean his suite at the Sofitel in midtown Manhattan.

Through his lawyer, Henri Leclerc, Strauss-Kahn has called Banon's story "a figment of her own imagination" and filed a complaint for slander, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The AP reports that the preliminary probe into Banon's claim could take weeks or even months. After that, the Paris prosecutor's office could decide to drop the cases or go forward with an investigation that could then lead to a trial. The question the initial probe will try to answer is whether Banon's accusation supports a charge of attempted rape or sexual assault. The statute of limitations for sexual assault in France is three years, while the statute of limitations for attempted rape is 10 years.

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