The Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad, already implicated for sexual violence, is targeted by new accusations from a woman who says she suffered an attempted rape in 2010, according to her story published Tuesday, June 14 by Mediapart.
Mr. Abad, who is seeking a new mandate as deputy on Sunday in Ain, denounced the “carefully chosen timing of these publications” and the “partiality” of the investigation of Mediapart, who, according to him, has a motivation ” Politics “. “As for the reported allegations, they revolt me and I categorically refute them”added Mr. Abad.
“Laetitia” (assumed name), a “elected centrist”accuses Mr. Abad of having tried to rape her during a party organized at his home in Paris in the first half of 2010. Without explicitly mentioning a complaint, his lawyer, Mrs.e Raphaële Bialkiewicz, told Mediapart that she was proceeding “to the collection and cross-checking of elements, with a view to providing all the useful follow-ups”. “Today, I can no longer be silent”said Laëtitia to Mediapart. “If I speak, it’s so that it stops, so that he can’t start again”she added.
“I was scared, I was flabbergasted”
During the events she relates, she was president of the New Center youth movement, of which Mr. Abad, MEP, was the national president. On the evening of the events, she says, Damien Abad told her “offered a drink” at the bottom of which she saw ” something “ : suspicious, she went to spit her mouthful in the toilet.
Also according to his story, Mr. Abad was waiting for him behind the door and everything went ” very quickly “ : the MEP would have “pushed into a room opposite” then tried to force her to perform fellatio. “I was scared, I was flabbergasted. I struggled, I punched him in the stomach”she says.
“Laetitia” said to have finally been able ” come undone “ of his alleged assailant and leave the room thanks to the irruption of a guest. The facts reported by this woman are “supported by the testimonies of eight people, to whom she confided or who may have witnessed certain elements of her story”and Mediapart claims to have contacted.
The government arrested
These accusations come after those published by the online media on May 21the day after the appointment of Mr. Abad as Minister for Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabled People: two women, quoted by Mediapart, accused the new minister of raping them in 2010 and 2011.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, one of them – who confirmed her story to AFP – filed a complaint twice, but these two complaints were dismissed in 2012, then in 2017, first for “complainant’s deficiency”then “failure of a sufficiently serious offence”.
As for the other accuser, the prosecution announced on May 25 that it was not opening a preliminary investigation. ” as is “ on the facts that it denounces, for lack of element allowing to identify it. His testimony was indeed transmitted to justice in an anonymized form by the Observatory of sexist and sexual violence in politics.
“Is Damien Abad worthy of exercising his functions and working for the general interest? »questioned this association on Tuesday after the new revelations of Mediapart, adding that“A lack of reaction could, as it stands, only be interpreted as validation by the government of this type of violent behavior towards women”.