Nafissatou Diallo Photos: Dominique Strauss-Kahn ‘Victim’ Says It’s About The Money
THE New York maid who claims former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her on May 14 is called Nafissatou Diallo. She is a 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea.
That’s her talking to Newsweek magazine and on Good Morning America.
Can any trial now proceed as Ms Diallo works the media circuit? She’s famous now. If he wins, she is famous. If she wins, she is famous. And with fame comes…money.
“I never want to be in public but I have no choice,” Diallo told ABC News, adding “Now, I have to be in public. I have to, for myself. I have to tell the truth.”
Surely it is good that we know her name? The alleged is sullied and forced to do the perp walk in public. The accuser has their anonymity protected.
Says Diallo:
“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.”
So. This is about money? He is guilty because he has money? What are we supposed to make of it all when an alleged rape becomes entertainment with ad breaks..?
Who is she?
This translated piece by Inmala Fide is the first part of the Slate France article “Qui est vraiment Nafissatou Diallo?“, by Sabine Cessou.
The daughter of a merchant form the Peule tribe (40% of the population in a country of 10.3 million), she is from the Labé region in Guinea, and followed her husband, a Guinea merchant, to the USA in 1998. There, she divorced him and has been raising her 15 year old daughter alone in the Bronx. She has some family in Harlem, including her sister, who is married to a Guinean business man working in the import-export trade.
Nafissatou Diallo holds a green card, and has been working as a maid in the Sofitel Hotel for three years. She has a reputation as a serious girl.
“She is as hard a worker as her sister,” said a cousin of hers on the phone. Diallo’s family has not been able to see her yet. Like everyone else, they read the papers, but they hope the sexual assault is “less severe” that what is reported.
Mamadou Chérif Diallo, from the victim’s family, and a 35 year old Guinean who is working for a New York City agency, who is tasked with representing the family, said this:
She’s a good Muslim. She is really pretty, as are a lot of Peule women, but in our culture, we do not accept this kind of behavior. Seriously, Dominique Strauss-Kahn attacked the wrong person. It’s a scandal! It’s really sad, this accident!
Under police protection
The family explained that Nafissatou Diallo is in hiding with NYPD protection to protect her from the media. She presently has a lawyer. The attorney general’s office in Manhattan, contacted by SlateAfrique, refused to confirm the identity of Nafissatou Diallo, a common measure to protect sexual assault victims in the US.
Why does she no longer need protecting?
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers say the interviews serve another purpose:
Ms. Diallo is the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money. Her lawyers and public relations consultants have orchestrated an unprecedented number of media events and rallies to bring pressure on the prosecutors in this case after she had to admit her extraordinary efforts to mislead them. … Its obvious purpose is to inflame public opinion against a defendant in a pending criminal case.
Is it?
Posted: 25th, July 2011 | In: Politicians Comments (7) | TrackBack | Permalink
