Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn won a legal battle in Manhattan on Tuesday when a judge dropped all sex charges against him, but women's rights advocates decried that justice had been lost.
Prosecutors, citing a lack of credibility from the accuser, Guinean hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, dropped all charges against Strauss-Kahn, prompting the National Organization for Women (NOW) to condemn lawyers from both sides, Strauss-Kahn and the media.
"Sexist, racist, classist and ethnic stereotypes were all called into play in order to discredit Ms. Diallo. These attacks... help foster a climate where women victims of sexual violence fear being re-victimized by law enforcement and the press," NOW's statement said.
Michael Greys, a member of the rights group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, said Diallo had been raped twice -- first by Strauss-Kahn and now legally by the prosecutors.
"How can there be a credibility issue, when they use confidential informants everyday that have criminal history?" he asked.
But some legal experts argued that District Attorney Cyrus Vance's decision to forfeit the case in fact proved that the justice system had prevailed after his prosecution's initial gung-ho pursuit of Strauss-Kahn.
In a "he-said, she-said" case, a jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and, after repeated instances of lying, Diallo's credibility on the witness stand had likely been weakened beyond repair.
"The prosecutors’ motion to dismiss the case had nothing whatsoever to do with position or place," wrote Gerald Shargel, a member of the New York Bar, in The Daily Beast.
"Strauss-Kahn and all his riches did not influence the outcome. The class or cultural divide played no part. The motion to dismiss was plainly grounded: For reasons well identified, the prosecutors had lost confidence in their case." After his arrest in May, prosecutors boasted of strong evidence that Strauss-Kahn forced Diallo into oral sex and attempted to rape her, but weeks later in a stunning reversal they announced that the alleged victim had an enormous credibility deficit.
She had lied on her US asylum application form, including about a gang rape she had suffered back home in Guinea. She also lied in sworn testimony to the grand jury about her movements immediately after her alleged sexual assault at the hands of Strauss-Kahn.
As a former assistant US attorney in Brooklyn, New York, Jeffrey Toobin cheered Vance in what he called a "legal victory" for Strauss-Kahn.
"The Vance team did not make the tragic mistake that prosecutors commit all too often. They did not fall in love with their case, so to speak, and thus refuse to recognize evidence that did not comport with their theories," he wrote in "The New Yorker."
But Diallo's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said his client had been denied her right to justice and accused Vance of having "turned his back" on forensic, medical and other physical evidence.
"If the Manhattan district attorney, who is elected to protect our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives and our loved ones, is not going to stand up for them when they're raped or sexually assaulted, then who will?"
Strauss-Kahn, who "handled this ordeal with extraordinary class," according to his star attorney Benjamin Brafman, is now free.
But more charges await him back home in France, where 32-year-old writer Tristane Banon has filed a complaint alleging the politician tried to rape her after luring her to a Paris flat in 2003.
Banon's mother said she was "outraged" by the French Socialist party's triumphant reaction to Strauss-Kahn's release.
"I am outraged, morning, day and night. What I find truly revolting is the reaction of elected Socialists," said Anne Mansouret, a Socialist party member.
"They are all repeating that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has emerged clean. No, he has not emerged clean."
Strauss-Kahn has announced his intention to sue Banon for defamation, alleging she invented the story to help publicize her writing.
Diallo has meanwhile filed a civil suit in the United States seeking unspecified damages against the former IMF chief, whose career and reputation have been forever tarnished by the scandal.
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