A Guinean woman who has accused the former IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of trying to rape her in a New York hotel was on the offensive on Monday, saying she wanted him to go to jail.
“Because of him, they call me a prostitute,” Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.
“I want him to go to jail. I want him to know there are some places you cannot use your power, you cannot use your money.”
She was fighting back against allegations that appeared in the U.S. media after New York prosecutors openly questioned her credibility, saying she had changed her story and lied on her U.S. asylum application.
There were also media reports of possible links to criminal activities and that she was recorded speaking by phone with a boyfriend jailed for possessing marijuana and discussing the benefits of pursuing charges.
The woman has not been seen in public since the alleged attack and said she was whisked away to a hotel with her 15-year-old daughter and not allowed to return to her apartment for about two months.
Ms. Diallo also appeared on ABC's Good Morning America on Monday, exactly a week before Mr. Strauss-Kahn is due back in court in New York on August 1 for his next hearing on seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault.
“I want justice. I want him to go to jail,” she told ABC.
“God is my witness. I'm telling the truth. From my heart. God knows that. And he knows that,” she said, according to excerpts of the interview.
