INNOCENT

I would like M Strauss-Kahn, former Head of the International Monetary Fund, to know that I never believed that story of his alleged attack, invented by the hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, It didn’t make sense to me. France is a less puritanical country than these islands, and men can have mistresses, so why should a man in his position bother attacking hotel maids. I believed in his innocence throughout, and had my gravest doubts about her entire story. Those must have been terrible months for M and Mdme Strauss-Kahn, who have my sympathy. To be falsely accused, to have one’s integrity besmirched, to have one’s honour questioned, quite apart from the shattering professional collapse occasioned by this criminal, that’ll need quite a bit of repair work to be done. To this end M et Mdme Strauss-Kahn have my best wishes.

Peter Zander

24 August 2011