Judge rejects Dominique Strauss-Kahn motion
Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face legal reckoning in a New York courtroom after a judge dismissed his claims of diplomatic immunity over the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid.
He attempted to have the case thrown out by claiming that his role as managing director of the International Monetary Fund afforded him diplomatic immunity. The move was described by a judge in The Bronx as a “Hail Mary pass” – a reference to a last-ditch play in American football. A civil lawsuit filed by Nafissatou Diallo will now go to trial. Criminal charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn over the same offence were dropped.
Judge Douglas McKeon wrote that diplomatic immunity would have applied only if Mr Strauss-Kahn’s alleged indiscretion was performed in “his official capacity” – something the Frenchman accepts was not the case. Mr McKeon also noted that he had resigned from the IMF by the time the civil claim was brought, meaning he had no such immunity. The judge suggested that the claims of immunity were fatuous. “Confronted with well-stated law that his voluntary resignation from the IMF terminated any immunity which he enjoyed, Mr Strauss-Khan throws Ö his own version of a Hail Mary pass,” he said.
Mr McKeon also pointed out in his ruling that Mr Strauss-Kahn did not claim immunity when prosecutors were pursuing the criminal charges against him, instead stating a willingness to clear his name.
The judge said: “Mr Strauss-Kahn cannot eschew immunity in an effort to clear his name only to embrace it now in an effort to deny Ms Diallo the opportunity to clear hers.”
Miss Diallo claims that Mr Strauss-Kahn carried out a “violent and sadistic attack” in a New York hotel last May.