DSK detained over role in prostitution ring

French police detained former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn for questioning over allegations he took part in orgies in Paris and Washington paid for by a pair of businessmen.

The 62-year-old former Socialist minister, who until last year was seen as the front-runner to replace Nicolas Sarkozy as French President, was summoned as a witness but prosecutors said he is now a suspect.

He arrived voluntarily at a police station in the northern city of Lille for an appointment for questioning about his role in the latest sex scandal to beset his career.

Shortly after his arrival, prosecutors said he would instead be detained on suspicion of “complicity in pimping” and “misuse of company funds” and could thus face charges and be detained for up to 96 hours.

A magistrate would have to decide whether the evidence supports these charges or other potential offences. Then, if the judge agrees, he could be released on bail or remanded in custody pending an eventual trial.

Under French law, pimping carries a seven-year prison term and profiting from embezzlement carries five years and a large fine.

Between interrogations, the millionaire is to be held in a 7.5-square-metre cell with a simple foam mattress, a sink and a hole-in- the-floor squat toilet.

Investigating magistrates want to know whether he was aware that the women who entertained him at parties in restaurants, hotels and swingers’ clubs in Paris, Washington and several European capitals were paid prostitutes.

They will also seek to determine whether Strauss- Kahn knew that the escorts were paid with funds fraudulently obtained by his hosts from a French public works company for which one of them worked as a senior executive.

Paying a prostitute is not in itself illegal in France, but profiting from vice or embezzling company funds to pay for sex can lead to charges.

The former director of the IMF admits he has led an adventurous sex life, but denies he was implicated in pimping or corruption and has indicated he will deny any criminal wrongdoing.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Henri Leclerc said his client could have been “perfectly unaware” the women were not providing their attentions for free.

“He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman.”

Two northern businessmen, Fabrice Paszkowski, a medical equipment tycoon with ties to Strauss-Kahn’s Socialist Party, and David Roquet, former director of a local subsidiary of building giant BTP Eiffage, have been charged.

The pair has alleged links to a network of French and Belgian prostitutes centred at the Carlton Hotel in Lille, a well-known meeting place of the local business and political elite in a city run by the Socialist Party.

In all, eight people have been charged in connection with the “Carlton affair” — including three executives from the luxury hotel itself, a leading lawyer and the local deputy police chief Jean-Christophe Lagarde.

The last of the sex parties is said to have taken place during a trip to Washington and the IMF headquarters between May 11 and 13 last year by Paszkowski and Roquet, in part to discuss Strauss-Kahn’s presidential bid.

On May 14 Strauss-Kahn’s career fell apart when he was arrested in New York following allegations that he had subjected chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo to sexual assault in his hotel suite.

The case against him eventually collapsed when prosecutors began to doubt Diallo’s credibility as a witness, and Strauss-Kahn returned to France to face further probes and scandal.

First, 32-year-old writer Tristane Banon accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003. Prosecutors deemed there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault but ruled the statute of limitations had passed.

Strauss-Kahn was linked to the Carlton case when suspected escorts gave his name to police probing a vice ring linked to notorious Belgian pimp Dominique Alderweireld, known in the underworld as “Dodo la Saumure”.

The involvement of businessmen and police officers raised suspicions they intended to curry favour with a presidential contender by procuring women for him.