[Emirates 24/7] Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a US court Wednesday that a maid's lawsuit alleging sexual assault should be thrown out because the French politician had diplomatic immunity at the time.Judge Douglas McKeon said he would rule quickly following a 90-minute hearing in a Bronx courthouse where a Strauss-Kahn attorney argued that the disgraced former head of the IMF had "the same kind of diplomatic immunity that other high-ranking officials and diplomats enjoy."
The civil suit, seeking unspecified damages, "must be dismissed," attorney Amit Mehta said in New York state court.
A lawyer for Nafissatou Diallo, the Manhattan hotel maid whose accusation of sexual assault triggered the spectacular downfall of a man tapped to be the next French president, ridiculed the notion of dismissal.
Douglas Wigdor said Strauss-Kahn "brutally sexually assaulted Ms Diallo" on May 14 last year and now wished to use the immunity argument to "deny Ms Diallo's right to a trial in this case and delay these proceedings."