French court puts off decision on Strauss-Kahn pimping trial

A French court is to rule on Wednesday on whether former International Monetary Fund (IMF) boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face trial on pimping charges. Three other sex-crime cases against Strauss-Kahn have already been dropped although he still faces a civil case in New York.

Reuters/Gleb Garanich

Update: The Douai court on Wednesday put off a decision on a bid by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers to have the pimping charges against him dismissed until 19 December.

Strauss-Kahn faces the appeals court in the northern French town of Douai, which will decide on his lawyers’ claim that investigating magistrates have shown bias against him, leaked information to the press and kept aspects of the case hidden from them.

In September prosecutors called for these claims to be kicked out of court, arguing that the charges were “justified” by “serious and corroborated evidence”.

Nine people have been charged in connection with the so-called “Carlton affair”, accused of organising a ring that provided prostitutes for orgies in Paris, Washington and the Carlton Hotel in the northern French city of Lille.

Some also face charges of fraud and embezzlement, relating to the alleged misuse of company funds.

Among the accused are the hotel’s public relations officer, René Kojfer, and police commissioner Jean-Christophe Lagarde.

Their lawyers claim that they have been caught up in a witch-hunt against Strauss-Kahn, who was once tipped to be the Socialist Party’s candidate in this year’s presidential election.

Three other cases against Strauss-Kahn have already been dropped:

• New York prosecutors dropped charges that he had tried to rape hotel chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo because of doubts over her testimony, although she is still pursuing a civil case against him and he is filed a countersuit for defamation;
• French prosecutors dropped an investigation into his alleged participation in a gang rape after the prostitute involved said she had consented;
• French magistrates decided that they could not act on French writer Tristane Banon’s accusation that he had tried to rape her in 2002 because the legal time limit had expired.