Strauss-Kahn 'to be released'
Prosecutors will agree to the release of ex-IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn without bail at a hearing today, reports say.
The move comes after the Manhattan district attorney’s office uncovered serious questions about the credibility of a hotel housekeeper who accused him of sexual assault, a person familiar with the investigation said.
The Associated Press learned about the agreement shortly before the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn arrived for the hearing amid a throng of reporters, cameras and onlookers. He is accused of crimes including attempted rape and denies the allegations.
The judge would have to agree to the terms of any release before Strauss-Kahn is freed.
Investigators have come to believe that the woman lied about some of her activities in the hours around the alleged attack and about her own background, a law enforcement official told the AP.
Prosecutors think she lied about details on her application for asylum in the US, including saying she had been raped in her native Guinea, the official said.
“She actually recounted the entire story to prosecutors and later said it was false,” the official said.
Prosecutors have not necessarily reached a new conclusion about the allegations against Strauss-Kahn and have not decided whether to downgrade the charges. Investigators had earlier said they found traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen on the maid’s uniform, indicating an encounter, and they have not backed away from that.
But the serious reduction in bail – from a $6m in cash bail and bond under house arrest in a pricey Manhattan loft, to nothing - signals the case is not as serious as initially thought.
Strauss-Kahn lawyer William W Taylor would say only that the hearing was to review the bail plan. The Manhattan district attorney's office declined to comment.
The New York Police Department, which investigated the case, declined to comment. The woman’s lawyer did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
“There will be serious issues raised by the district attorney’s office and us concerning the credibility of the complaining witness,” Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, told The Wall Street Journal.
The maid told police that Strauss-Kahn chased her down a hallway in his $3,000-a-night suite in New York’s Sofitel hotel, tried to pull down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex before she broke free.
If the case collapses, it could once again shake up the race for the French presidency.
Strauss-Kahn, a prominent Socialist, had been seen as a leading potential challenger to conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s elections - until the New York hotel allegations embarrassed Strauss-Kahn’s party and led to his resignation from the IMF.
“Those who know Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not be surprised by this evolution of events,” one of his French lawyers, Leon Lef Forster, told the AP in Paris. “What he was accused of has no relation to his personality. It was something that was not credible.”
