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PROSECUTORS OVERSEEING THE case against former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn are to ask a judge to drop the charges at a court hearing on Tuesday, it has been reported.
The New York Post claims that the Manhattan district attorney’s office will ask that all charges against Strauss-Kahn be dropped because the sole witness – his alleged victim – has what the paper described as “credibility problems”.
The motion calling on the charges to be dropped will be “lengthy, thorough and carefully crafted”. It may outline, for the first time, some of the reasons why the evidence of Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid behind the allegations, cannot be used.
The New York Times carried a similar report quoting solicitors for Diallo, who are to meet with officials from the DA’s office tomorrow to discuss whether a case could still be brought.
“My interpretation of that letter is that they’re going to announce that they’re dismissing the case entirely,” Diallo’s lawyer Kenneth P Thompson told the Times.
“If they were not going to dismiss the charges, there would be no need to meet with her. They would just go to court the next day to say, ‘We’re going to proceed with the case.’”
Another of Diallo’s lawyers, Douglas Wigdor, told today’s edition of the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that he “does not know what will happen” on Tuesday.
“If the prosecutor does his job, he must persevere with Dominique Strauss-Kahn,” Wigdor said, adding that he had no confidence in Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance.
Tuesday’s court hearing has already been postponed twice, with Strauss-Kahn’s side claiming the delays are a result of the prosecution’s inability to substantiate its case, and the prosecution saying they needed more time to investigate further.
If the charges are dropped then Strauss-Kahn will be free to return to France for the first time since the incident, which ultimately led to his resignation at the helm of the International Monetary Fund.
Regardless of whether the criminal charges are brought, Strauss-Kahn will still face civil charges from Diallo over the alleged incident at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan in May.
He is also facing a criminal complaint of sexual assault and attempted rape against a French novelist, Tristane Banon, in 2002.
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Twitter @occupydamestr oct 8th
So you plan to block a city centre street on a busy Saturday, disturbing local businesses and residents, because of your personal sense of righteousness?
I’d usually be cynical about these type of protests but you know what people come on here and complain and complain that nobody does anything to protest in this country. Occupy Dame Street is at least a start. You can complain and give out about the government getting away with everything but at some point someone has to start something. I don’t advocate violence, most don’t, but I support a democratic right to protest at the bonuses, bailouts, pensions and golden handshakes that have and are continuing to go on day after day.
Ya bout time people started to protest. But the organizers must insure that the protests are hijacked by mote militant groups.
Surely outside the old Anglo offices or the IFSC would be the proper place to hold these protests, as opposed to outside the Central Bank? I mean the Americans are hardly occupying the Federal Reserve, are they?!
The whole point of it is to express anger towards the reckless investment banks, not central banks. Learn the difference.
Idiots.
Your press release effectively advocates Sinn Féin’s economic policy.
“Our demand in Ireland is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) stay out of our affairs. We do not want their influence or control.”
Nor does anybody else, but we need the support of both organisations until such a time as we are able to manage our own affairs. Instead of blocking a busy street on a busy Saturday, as Ronald said, crucifying poor shop owners, perhaps you and your fellow activists could try and pool your resources to start a business, and stimulate our local economy?
Instead of going out and howling about the problem, thus making things worse, perhaps you could try and TREAT the source of the problem, which is a lack of jobs?
Bring back the co-operative movement, I say.
When are we going to gave Occupy Kildare Street ?
Oct 8th for starters
There are plenty of citizens who will fight back if the hippies try and take over here, there is no way i would stand back and let a bunch of lazy lefties destroy our fine capital.
Ah, so you’ll stand back then the government, developers and bankers financially ruin the entire country but if a few hundred people block one street in protest you’ll fight back? Aside from that making no sense I’d doubt anyone apart from the ‘lefties’ will get off their hole!
Thank you for undeleting
Your comment wasn’t deleted Lousie. There was a problem with the photo gallery and the post was unavailable while the issue was being rectified.
In 1917 the federal reserve bank was established by the progressive Woodrow Wilson. The owners of the FED, Jacob schiff Kuhn and Loeb, Warburg Brothers, Rockefellers, JP Morgan and I believe the Rothschilds and the elite of Goldman Sachs (of which the US Treasiury is now a subsidiary) These same Wall Street financiers and moguls also promoted Theodore Herzl’s dream of founding an independent Israel by wresting Palestine from the Turks, The Fed owners also financed Leon Trotsky’s emigration to russia and financed the Bolshevik Revolution causing the slaughter and enslavement of millions.
The owners of these bail out recipient firms, like goldman Sachs, are also the stockholders and controllers of The federal reserve Bank, IMF, World Bank etc. In short we have aplutocracy and the Fed and its owners are the most egregious and onerous. The other Wall street firms are mere counts and barons compared to theowners of the Fed and other national banks. I would not doubt they are financing and promoting this repeat of 1848,
it was wealthy bankers who fnaced the Jacobins, Nazis, Bolsheviks and all the other socialist, “Power to the people” movements. It is all about control and often those who want to replace the old order are as tyrannical and ruthless as the estate they removed.
have your say