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French court pursues DSK case

December 19, 2012

Pimping charges against the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will be pursued by French courts, a judge has declared. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have said they will appeal.

https://p.dw.com/p/175JC
Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn gestures as he leaves his apartment in Paris December 10, 2012. Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, were ordered to appear before New York state court on Monday to brief a judge on the status of settlement talks in the maid's civil case against him. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes (FRANCE - Tags: POLITICS CRIME LAW)
Strauss Kahn ParisImage: Reuters

The decision by the court in the French city of Douai on Wednesday was prompted after Strauss-Kahn's lawyers had requested that the charges be dropped.

His lawyers have argued that while Strauss-Kahn may have come in contact with prostitutes during sex parties in northern France, that is not necessarily grounds for charging him with pimping.

Strauss-Kahn's defense has argued that the judges in the case are biased against him as well.

"Dominique Strauss-Kahn's defense team is certain that he will ultimately be cleared of these absurd accusations of pimping," a statement from Henri Leclerc, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn. He also said he planned to take the matter to the French Supreme Court.

Wednesday's decision comes just a week after Strauss-Kahn settled out of court with a hotel maid in New York who had accused Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape in May 2011.

The accusations cost Strauss-Kahn his post at the IMF and ruined his ambitions of becoming the president of France.

mz/hc (Reuters, AP)