BY MICHAEL EBOH
Former International Monetary Fund’s, IMF boss, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Khan, will be engaged in a new battle on a different front, as he fights to salvage his battered reputation, joblessness, fractured political career among others.

Fortunately, he has escaped the sexual assault charges proffered against him in the United States. A New York judge, had earlier in the week, dismissed the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, though, the order is on hold until an appeal court rules on his accuser’s request for a special prosecutor.

A 33-year-old Guinean maid, Nafissatou Diallo, had claimed that the former head of the International Monetary Fund attacked her and sexually assaulted her in his luxury suite on May 14. She has appealed. But reports said the hotel maid rolled around on the floor hysterically crying when confronted about a web of lies she is said to have told to have him arrested. As the Manhattan district attorney’s office asked a judge to drop the sexual assault case against the former IMF chief, it is said Diallo finally admitted to her deception, simply telling prosecutors: ‘I wasn’t under oath’.  The $3,000 night hotel room Strauss-Kahn was staying in when he allegedly attacked Diallo contained the semen of between four and seven other men, the report revealed.

Four stains were found on the carpet of the room at the Sofitel, three of which contained remnants of the semen of three different men. The fourth stain on its own, bizarrely, contained DNA from three different men. Investigators also found another stain on the wallpaper. According to the recommendation for dismissal, the stains provided ‘no evidence that any other person was present during the charged incident’.

Therefore, ‘the circumstances under which the unidentified DNA was deposited are unrelated,’ it found. The development follows a meeting with Diallo and prosecutors about a ‘bombshell’ report with details of her alleged deception. ‘In virtually every substantive interview with prosecutors, despite entreaties to simply be truthful, she has not been truthful, on matters great and small, many pertaining to her background and some relating to the circumstances of the incident itself,’ the document states.

Judges immediately approve these kinds of requests, experts said. ‘After an extensive investigation, it is clear that proof of two critical elements – force and lack of consent – would rest solely on the testimony of the complaining witness at trial. Indeed, the case rises and falls on her testimony.’ the report continued.

‘Because we cannot credit the complainant’s testimony beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.’ Among evidence provided to prove Diallo’s lies is a history of supposedly fraudulent statements she is said to have made under oath in the past, as well as conflicting accounts told to investigators, the media and in court.

‘We have no confidence that the complainant would tell the truth on this issue if she were called as a witness at trial,’ the report states. When she told prosecutors she was gang raped by soldiers in Guinea, her country of birth, she ‘laid her head face down on her arms on a table in front of her,’ as she said her two-year-old daughter was pulled from her arms and thrown to the floor. The hotel maid later admitted she had not been gang raped and that she had made up the story to help gain asylum to the U.S.

When confronted about another lie, she is said to have ‘dropped to the floor, and physically rolled around while weeping.’ The document goes on to allege that she failed to disclose $60,000 in deposits made to her account ‘by individuals in four different states’.

When she was asked about the money, she said it was from her fiancé Amara Tarawally – who has been convicted of drug offences in Arizona after he tried to buy $36,500 of marijuana from undercover policemen. While Diallo insisted she had no intention to try cash in on her case against Strauss-Kahn, the papers allege that ‘very close in time to these statements, the complainant had a recorded conversation with her incarcerated fiancé, in which the potential for financial recovery in relation to the May 14, 2011 incident was mentioned.’ The report continues: ‘Although there is nothing wrong with seeking recovery from a defendant in a civil suit, the complainant’s disavowal of any financial interest is relevant to her credibility.’

The sudden turnaround has led to speculation that Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist politician, could resume his campaign to succeed Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France next year. In a stunning turnaround, Strauss-Kahn was expected to be free in court, leaving him free to return to France and even run for the country’s presidency. He helped transformed the organisation significantly, especially during the period of the global financial crisis. The IMF, before his entry, was a stickler for orthodox fiscal policy that imposed remorseless conditions on countries in difficulty.

His dream was to make the IMF central in any such ambitious reform but he left with it still on the drawing board.He is expected, as parts of an image laundering and rehabilitation process, to return to France and try to win over his fellow Socialist Party members and the French public.

Analysts are of the view that it is unlikely that he will start making any impassioned or combative statements of his innocence soon and will try to reclaim his turf in France’s looming presidential race.

They said that Strauss-Kahn is aware that even if he no longer runs any risk of being found guilty of criminal sexual misconduct in the U.S., the on-going French investigation into the attempted rape claims will continue leaving him vulnerable—if nothing else, to public suspicions about his conduct and credibility following the media reports about his objectionable private behavior that have swirled over the past three months.