Strauss-Kahn Will Be Acquitted: Attorney

The principal attorney for Dominique Strauss-Kahn is confident that his client will be acquitted of sexual assault charges he faces

Benjamin Brafman also told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that if the former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was not a famous foreigner, the judge in the case. would not have imposed such an unusually high $1-million bail.

Strauss-Kahn is charged with raping and sodomizing a hotel chambermaid in a luxury Times Square hotel two weeks ago.

[Strauss-Kahn will] plead not guilty and in the end he'll be acquitted, Brafman told the paper, while on a short trip to Israel.

Reportedly, Strauss-Kahn came to Brafman’s attention through his law partner, a mutual friend.

Brafman, who has defended such high-profile defendants as Michael Jackson and Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, would not discuss details of the case, but noted that authorities in New York, including the Police Department, are under enormous pressure to come down hard on celebrity suspected criminals.

Meanwhile, a top official of the French government has said that in the event Strauss-Kahn is convicted he should be imprisoned in a French jail.

It seems obvious that, in the hypothesis that [Strauss-Kahn] is convicted, he should serve his sentence in France, said France’s interior minister Claude Guéant, according to reports.

Strauss-Kahn has again denied he is guilty of the sex charges he is facing. CNN reported that the former IMF boss told his staff of his profound sadness and frustration at having to quit his high-profile job.

I deny in the strongest possible terms the allegations which I now face, he reportedly stated in an e-mail to IMF staff. He also said he believes he will be exonerated.

Strauss-Kahn is currently under 24-hour arrest and is believed to be staying at a luxury apartment in the Wall Street area of lower Manhattan.