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Prosecutor calls for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be acquitted of pimping charges

A French prosecutor has asked for the former head of the International Monetary Fund - Dominique ...
Newstalk
Newstalk

15.45 17 Feb 2015


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Prosecutor calls for Dominique...

Prosecutor calls for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be acquitted of pimping charges

Newstalk
Newstalk

15.45 17 Feb 2015


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A French prosecutor has asked for the former head of the International Monetary Fund - Dominique Strauss-Kahn - to be acquitted of pimping charges.

Mr Strauss-Kahn has always denied arranging for prostitutes to come to sex parties he attended in Paris, Brussels and Washington.

The judge hearing the case now has to decide if he did.

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The call, by prosecutor Frederic Fevre, comes after two former prostitutes dropped a civil case against the man once seen as a possible future president of France.

Mr Fevre said: "Neither the judicial enquiry nor the hearing" proved that Strauss-Kahn was guilty of procuring prostitutes for sex parties he attended in Paris, Brussels and Washington.

He added that, while Strauss-Kahn had testified to having orgies while he was managing the world financial crisis, being "rough" with his sexual "conquests," and needing sex with exceptional frequency, none of this was illegal.

Strauss-Kahn's "notoriety shouldn't be in any way a presumption of guilt", he said.

During the three-week trial in the French city of Lille, Strauss-Kahn has said he did not know the women participating in sex parties were prostitutes.

He has also denied he organised the parties.

Mr Fevre did not think there was a strong case against Strauss-Kahn before the trial and had asked for the charges to be dropped.

He was over-ruled by investigative judges who sent the case to trial, however.

The trial is due to finish this week, but a verdict is not expected immediately and it now seems likely Strauss-Kahn will walk away with a clean record.

Mr Fevre has requested one year in prison for one of the 13 others accused in the case - Dominique Alderweireld, a brothel owner known as "Dodo the Pimp" - and suspended sentences and hefty fines for a group of friends accused of running a prostitution ring.

He said: "This was not a mafia network that was dismantled," but a group of friends trying to "satisfy egos, ambitions and, quite simply, physical desires."


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