Photographs: Reuters Yoshita Singh in New York
US prosecutors have filed documents in a court in New York requesting that criminal charges against former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused by a hotel maid of sexual assault, be dropped.
A report in the New York Times said prosecutors in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance filed a "dismissal on recommendation" today afternoon in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The prosecutors have requested that all charges against the former head of the International Monetary Fund in the sexual assault case be dropped.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for hotel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo also met with prosecutors briefly in the afternoon.
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Strauss-Kahn: Prosecutors want charges dropped
Image: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair.Photographs: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
At the meeting, prosecutors were expected to tell her lawyer Kenneth Thompson that they were planning to drop charges in the case.
"The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case," Thompson said.
"He has not only turned his back on this victim but he has also turned his back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this case," he said.
He said, "If the Manhattan district attorney, who is elected to protect our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives and our loved ones, is not going to stand up for them when they're raped or sexually assaulted, who will."
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Strauss-Kahn: Prosecutors want charges dropped
Image: Nafissatou Diallo (C), the Manhattan maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her.Photographs: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Thompson separately filed a motion today formally requesting that the Manhattan district attorney be removed from the case.
The motion was filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and provided new details that said the district attorney mishandled the case.
"Unfortunately, the D.A.'s handling of the prosecution against Defendant Strauss-Kahn has been inadequate and troubling," Thompson wrote in the motion filed on behalf of his Diallo, the 32-year-old Guinean housekeeper who has accused Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her when she went to clean his suite at the Sofitel New York.
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