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Strauss-Kahn prosecutor calls for acquittal in pimping trial | |
(4 months later) | |
A French prosecutor has asked a court to acquit the former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of a pimping charge for his role in what investigating magistrates argued was an organised sex ring using prostitutes. | |
Strauss-Kahn was tipped to become French president before being accused of sexual assault by a New York hotel cleaner in 2011. US criminal charges were subsequently dropped and the allegations that he participated in a French sex ring centred in the northern French city of Lille emerged later. | |
On Monday, two women dropped a civil suit against Strauss-Kahn, with lawyers saying they lacked enough proof to win the case. | |
The Lille prosecutor’s request highlighted the difficulty of a potential conviction of Strauss-Kahn, 65. The trial is due to finish this week, with closing statements from the defence on Wednesday, but a verdict is not expected immediately. | |
Investigating magistrates, who originally sent the case against Strauss-Kahn to trial over the objections of the same prosecutor, argued Strauss-Kahn was the instigator of parties involving prostitutes from 2008 to 2011 in Lille, Brussels, Paris and Washington. | |
The charge of pimping, or “procuring with aggravating circumstances”, was justified, magistrates said, because Strauss-Kahn took a principal role in planning the parties, and knew that the women who attended them were prostitutes. | |
But during the three-week trial in Lille, Strauss-Kahn consistently maintained he had no idea the women at the sex parties were prostitutes, and that he had not organised the parties himself. |
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