SHARE
COPY LINK

RAPE

Pressure builds to prosecute DSK case

A New York state senator and a coalition of women's rights groups and community leaders gathered Sunday to defend the alleged victim of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and demand the prosecution continue the sexual assault case.

“We are here to ask the District Attorney to do his job. We ask (DA) Vance to let the victim have her day in court,” said New York Democratic Senator Bill Perkins at a news conference in Harlem.

Accompanied by representatives from the African American, Muslim and Latino communities in New York, including Miss Guinea USA, Perkins criticized the prosecution for reports they might abandon the case because of the credibility of the Sofitel employee who brought charges against Strauss-Kahn in May.

“A dismissal would discourage victims from coming forward for fear that they themselves would be put on trial,” Perkins said, adding that Strauss-Kahn’s credibility should also be in question following charges of attempted rape in France.

“There appears to be enough compelling physical evidence in support of the victim’s allegations for the District Attorney’s office to move forward with the pursuit of this case,” he said.

Also present at the press conference was a member of the New York State Assembly Eric Stevenson. He said the idea that the prosecutor decides not to pursue a complaint “is a bad sign of the American judicial system.”

“She represents us,” said Virginia Montague, president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. “We expect the district attorney to stand firm,” she added.

Zenaida Mendez, founder of the National Dominican Women’s Caucus, declared that, “the world is watching what the United States does with this case.”

Released under oath in a surprise move over a week ago after spending several days in jail and then weeks under house arrest, Strauss-Kahn is accused of seven charges, including attempted rape, punishable by ten years in prison, for which he has pleaded not guilty.

The case suffered a major blow when prosecutors said the maid lied in sworn testimony in the case, and gave false information on tax and asylum application forms, including about an alleged gang rape in Guinea.

But in an open letter to Manhattan District Attorney Vance on July 6 and distributed during the press conference, Senator Perkins recalled that “none of what is mentioned in the media says this woman was not raped nor does it justify that the courts and the judicial system abandon her.”

Perkins said he has not been in touch with the alleged victim.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TRIAL

Danish terror trial begins against Iranian separatists

Three leaders of an Iranian Arab separatist group pleaded not guilty to financing and promoting terrorism in Iran with Saudi Arabia's backing, as their trial opened in Denmark on Thursday.

Danish terror trial begins against Iranian separatists
File photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The three risk 12 years in prison if found guilty.

Aged 39 to 50, the trio are members of the separatist organisation ASMLA (Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz), which is based in Denmark and the Netherlands and which Iran considers a terrorist group.

The three, one of whom is a Danish citizen, have been held in custody in Denmark since February 2020.

Gert Dyrn, lawyer for the eldest of the three, told AFP that in his client’s opinion “what they are charged with is legitimate resistance towards an oppressive regime.”

“They are not denying receiving money from multiple sources, including Saudi Arabia, to help the movement and help them accomplish their political aim,” Dyrn said. 

His client has lived as a refugee in Denmark since 2006. 

According to the charge sheet seen by AFP, the three received around 30 million kroner (four million euros, $4.9 million) for ASMLA and its armed branch, through bank accounts in Austria and the United Arab Emirates.

The trio is also accused of spying on people and organisations in Denmark between 2012 and 2020 for Saudi intelligence.

Finally, they are also accused of promoting terrorism and “encouraging the activities of the terrorist movement Jaish Al-Adl, which has activities in Iran, by supporting them with advice, promotion, and coordinating attacks.”

The case dates back to 2018 when one of the three was the target of a foiled attack on Danish soil believed to be sponsored by the Iranian regime in retaliation for the killing of 24 people in Ahvaz, southwestern Iran, in September 2018.

READ ALSO:

Tehran formally denied the attack plan in Denmark, but a Danish court last year jailed a Norwegian-Iranian for seven years for his role in the plot. 

That attack put Danish authorities on the trail of the trio’s ASMLA activities.

Sunni Saudi Arabia is the main rival in the Middle East of Shia Iran, and Tehran regularly accuses it, along with Israel and the United States, of supporting separatist groups.

Lawyer Gert Dyrn said this was “the first case in Denmark within terror law where you have to consider who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter.”

SHOW COMMENTS