Ex-IMF chief to be questioned on prostitution ring

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be quizzed about involvement in an alleged illegal prostitution ring, a source familiar with the case has said. He has been summoned for questioning Tuesday and can be held for up to 48 hours without being charged during a police probe into the organization of sex parties in restaurants and swingers’ clubs in Paris, Washington, Madrid, Vienna and Ghent, Belgium, AFP has reported. Ex-IMF chief to be questioned on prostitution ring He could face charges if magistrates deem he was aware the women who took part were prostitutes and the funds to pay them were fraudulently obtained, as is being alleged against other suspects. The press has also carried reports of Strauss-Kahn attending parties in a Paris hotel with Lille’s chief of police and the alleged kingpin of the ring “Dodo la Saumure”, who runs massage parlors in Belgium. He had demanded to be questioned by judges leading the inquiry, hoping to halt what his lawyers brand a “media lynching.” Once seen as the favorite to oust French President Nicolas Sarkozy and win April’s French presidential election, Strauss-Kahn is now an embarrassment to his Socialist Party, shunned by the campaign and former close allies. Strauss-Kahn, 62, resigned as director of the International Monetary Fund in May after he was accused of raping a chambermaid in a New York hotel. He returned to France in August after the U.S. case collapsed, only to face new allegations, AFP says. First, a 32-year-old writer accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003 but, while prosecutors said there was prima facie evidence of sexual assault, the case was too old to pursue. Then he was implicated in an entirely separate investigation into the alleged prostitution ring said to have operated out of luxury hotels in the northern French city of Lille. Dominique Strauss-Kahn (Beta, file) Tanjug

Ex-IMF chief to be questioned on prostitution ring

He could face charges if magistrates deem he was aware the women who took part were prostitutes and the funds to pay them were fraudulently obtained, as is being alleged against other suspects.

The press has also carried reports of Strauss-Kahn attending parties in a Paris hotel with Lille’s chief of police and the alleged kingpin of the ring “Dodo la Saumure”, who runs massage parlors in Belgium.

He had demanded to be questioned by judges leading the inquiry, hoping to halt what his lawyers brand a “media lynching.”

Once seen as the favorite to oust French President Nicolas Sarkozy and win April’s French presidential election, Strauss-Kahn is now an embarrassment to his Socialist Party, shunned by the campaign and former close allies.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, resigned as director of the International Monetary Fund in May after he was accused of raping a chambermaid in a New York hotel. He returned to France in August after the U.S. case collapsed, only to face new allegations, AFP says.

First, a 32-year-old writer accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003 but, while prosecutors said there was prima facie evidence of sexual assault, the case was too old to pursue.

Then he was implicated in an entirely separate investigation into the alleged prostitution ring said to have operated out of luxury hotels in the northern French city of Lille.