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Dominique Strauss-Kahn pimping trial: Disgraced former IMF chief faces second day in court after claims of 'brutal anal sex'
Dominique Strauss-Kahn 'had forced anal sex with second prostitute', pimping trial hears
(35 minutes later)
The disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to give evidence for a second day in his “pimping” trial.
A second former prostitute has claimed at the Lille pimping trial that she had been subjected to unwilling anal sex by the disgraced former IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The week-old trial in Lille, northern France – which is likely to last another 10 days – may turn on the credibility of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s declarations during an extraordinary and sometimes disturbing day of testimony on Tuesday.
Jade, a Belgian woman in her 40s, said the incident happened at the Amigo hotel in Brussels in club in Autumn 2009. She said that she had driven Mr Strauss-Kahn in her car to the hotel from a sex-club in the Belgian countryside.
DSK admitted that he took part in a series of 12 sex parties in three countries over three years in 2008-2011. He said that he did not organise the parties. He said that he did not realise the young women present were prostitutes.
“There was a moment which was more than unpleasant,” she said. “When I was lying with my back to Monsieur DSK, I suffered a penetration. If he had asked me, I would have said no. I didn’t like that.”
A young Franco-Moroccan former prostitute called “Mounia” said that Mr Strauss-Kahn had anal sex with her “brutally” at one of the parties - despite the fact that she had made it clear that she “didn’t like sexual practices like that”.
Jade said the incident proved that Mr Strauss-Kahn knew she was a prostitute because he treated her like an object. “Unless, somehow, he thinks he is on a different level to the rest of us and he can do anything that he wants.”
Mr Strauss-Kahn and 12 other people are accused of aggravated pimping in an organised gang”. DSK and three other people are accused of arranging sex parties with prostitutes in Brussels, Paris and Washington. Any activity which promotes or organises prostitution can be considered “pimping” under French law.
Mr Strauss-Kahn claims that he did not know the women who attended sex parties that he is accused of organising were prostitutes. Jade told the court he must have known. She said that they had discussed prostitution in Belgium during their car journey. She had made it clear that she worked in a sex club.
The last of these “orgies sans-frontières” took place in Washington a day before DSK’s arrest in New York in May 2011 accused of attempting to rape a hotel chamber-maid. Charges in that case were later dropped and a civil claim settled out of court.
A court sketch of Dominique Strauss-Kahn testifying at Lille’s courthouse A topless Femen activist jumps on the car carrying former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn as he arrives for his trial in Lille Jade said that during an official “confrontation” with DSK during the investigation which led to the trial, the former IMF chief had apologised for the incident in the Amigo hotel. She said that DSK said that he had not realised it had not been “cool” for her.
On the first day of his questioning, Mr Strauss-Kahn was relaxed and confident, sometimes to the point of arrogance. He said that he had a “horror” of prostitution and would never have attended the orgies if he knew that prostitutes were involved.
She admitted to the court, however, that she had accepted €2,000 to go to Washington to take part in a sex party with DSK the following January. While there, she had been invited to DSK's office at the IMF and had taken photographs.
He boasted that he had never had any trouble finding sex for free. Women had often “thrown themselves” at him, he said.
“People credit me with I don't know how many conquests - almost certainly less than the reality,” he said.
The former IMF chief denied that he had a “frantic or uncontrolled” sex life but said that he enjoyed sexual free-for-alls or “soirée libertines”.
“What I liked in swingers’ parties was the element of sport, or play,” he said “I like sexual activity to be a party, to be fun. Having prostitutes there wouldn’t fit my sense of fun.”
DSK told the court that he had assumed the young women were coming to these parties “for the excitement and the adventure…to take part in festive afternoons. I never thought they were coming just for me.”
Earlier, a young Franco-Moroccan former prostitute called “Mounia” said that Mr Strauss-Kahn insisted on having anal sex with her at one of the parties despite the fact that she was in tears. The incident is crucial to the prosecution. Investigators argue that DSK would only have treated a prostitute in this way.
Mounia said that the incident took place at a party in a Paris hotel in July 2010 at which four prostitutes were present. Mounia said she had made it clear that she was “very unhappy” at being asked to have anal sex. “I cried a lot….DSK must have been aware that I was unhappy,” she said.
A court sketch of Dominique Strauss-Kahn testifying at Lille’s courthouse
Their encounter lasted 20 to 30 minutes, she told the court. It was consensual, she said, but a “little brutal because he could see that I didn’t want to do it…. It was not violent. It was a trial of strength…It was (DSK’s) smile that struck me from the beginning to the end. He seemed to be really enjoying everything that he was doing.”
Questioned on Mounia’s claim that she had “cried” when she was asked to have anal sex, Mr Strauss-Kahn, 65, said initially that he had “no recollection that she had refused in any way.”
“If a woman says ‘no’, it’s ‘no’,” he said. Under questioning by the president of the court, Bernard Lemaire, DSK conceded that “submission” and “domination” were “part of the game” at “swingers’ parties”.
Mounia may have shown some signs of “unwillingness”, he said – he could not remember the detail - “but she never refused”.
Did he see her tears, he was asked. “No,” said the former IMF chief. “If I had seen that, I would have frozen.”
The week-old trial is expected to last another ten days. Judgement by the panel of two male and two female judges will probably be reserved for several months. If convicted. DSK could, in theory face ten years in prison and a fine of Euros 1.5m.
A second former prostitute, Jade, took the stand lasat night. She said he has been paid Euros 500 to travel from Belgium to a Paris sex party at which DSK was the star guest.
She said that she had performed oral sex with the former IMF leader, who was constantly surrounded by undressed women. The party had evidently nothing to do with “swinging” she said because there were no preliminaries, just sex.
Asked if she had spoken to DSK, Jade said: “No, because I had him in my mouth.”
Asked if she had known who he was at the time, she said that she had had no idea “because I don’t have TV at home.”
“When I saw him on the TV later, I said ‘Oh gosh, it’s him, but he has his clothes on.”
Dominique Strauss-Kahn arrives at the Lille courthouse in Lille, northern France Tuesday, February 10, 2015 A Lille businessman, Fabrice Paszkowski, admitted organising the parties for his “close friend” DSK but said that he had never told the then IMF chief that the women were paid. He insisted that some of the women were half-swinger- half prostitute. He ventured the phrase “libertines remunerées” - or “paid swingers”.
Challenged by the president of the court, he admitted that this amounted to prostitution. He said that he had never told DSK because he did not want to admit to his celebrated friend that he had to pay the women who came to his parties. He also instructed the women not to admit they were prostitutes.
“It was not very glorious to come along with paid swingers,” Mr Paszkowski said.
