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News anchor quizzed in Strauss-Kahn case

French detectives interviewed a celebrity former news anchor Monday in connection with allegations of attempted rape against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, sources said.

Published: 26 July 2011 12:10 CEST

News anchor quizzed in Strauss-Kahn case

Georges Seguin

Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, the popular former presenter of the prime-time news on French channel TF1, was questioned by investigators from the Paris violent crimes squad, said the sources close to the enquiry, who asked not to be named.

The detectives are investigating a claim by the French writer Tristane Banon, 32, that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2003. On the basis of their findings prosecutors will decide whether to press charges.

Poivre d’Arvor, a journalist and writer, was an acquaintance of Banon and is one of about 10 people whom she and her mother Anne Mansouret say they told about the alleged attempted rape at the time.

Strauss-Kahn has dismissed the alleged attack as “imaginary”.

Police have already questioned top French presidential hopeful Francois Hollande and other acquaintances close to Banon and Strauss-Kahn.

When Banon brought her legal action this month, Strauss-Kahn was already facing separate charges in New York, where he is accused of sexually assaulting and trying to rape a hotel maid.

He denies all the charges but the New York case has already derailed his hopes of beating President Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency next year.

Hollande now polls among those most likely to win.

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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.

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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.”

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