Drop DSK pimping charges: French court
Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have won a legal victory on Tuesday, after a court in the northern city of Lille called for charges of “aggravated pimping” against DSK, as he is known in France, to be dropped.
The public prosecutor in the northern city of Lille on Tuesday called for a ‘non-lieu’, or abandonment of charges against DSK and another man, Jean-Luc Vergin, charged with “aggravated pimping in an organized gang.”
“In effect, as far as they [DSK and Vergin] are concerned, the court is of the opinion that there are not sufficient charges against them,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
The case, known here as the "Carlton affair", centres around allegations that business leaders and police officials in Lille operated a vice ring supplying girls for sex parties, some of which are said to have taken place at the city's Carlton Hotel.
DSK has not denied taking part in these sex parties, but has affirmed that the women in attendance were not prostitutes.
Three judges in Lille are now set to decide on whether to accept the recommendation of the prosecutor and drop all charges against DSK, or insist that he go to trial.
The Carlton case is one of a series of probes that were launched in the aftermath of Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York.
French writer Tristane Banon accused him of trying to rape her in 2003. Investigators concluded that while there was evidence of sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.
Strauss-Kahn was also investigated over an allegation that he had taken part in the gang rape of a Belgian prostitute. The case was dropped when she recanted and said she had consented to sex.
Earlier in June, The Local reported how Italian journalist Myrta Merlino claimed DSK sexually assaulted her in his swanky hotel suite on the fringes of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on an unspecified date in the “late 1990s.”
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The public prosecutor in the northern city of Lille on Tuesday called for a ‘non-lieu’, or abandonment of charges against DSK and another man, Jean-Luc Vergin, charged with “aggravated pimping in an organized gang.”
“In effect, as far as they [DSK and Vergin] are concerned, the court is of the opinion that there are not sufficient charges against them,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
The case, known here as the "Carlton affair", centres around allegations that business leaders and police officials in Lille operated a vice ring supplying girls for sex parties, some of which are said to have taken place at the city's Carlton Hotel.
DSK has not denied taking part in these sex parties, but has affirmed that the women in attendance were not prostitutes.
Three judges in Lille are now set to decide on whether to accept the recommendation of the prosecutor and drop all charges against DSK, or insist that he go to trial.
The Carlton case is one of a series of probes that were launched in the aftermath of Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York.
French writer Tristane Banon accused him of trying to rape her in 2003. Investigators concluded that while there was evidence of sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.
Strauss-Kahn was also investigated over an allegation that he had taken part in the gang rape of a Belgian prostitute. The case was dropped when she recanted and said she had consented to sex.
Earlier in June, The Local reported how Italian journalist Myrta Merlino claimed DSK sexually assaulted her in his swanky hotel suite on the fringes of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on an unspecified date in the “late 1990s.”
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