Strauss-Kahn held by police

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Strauss-Kahn held by police

February 21st, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

PARIS — Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken in for questioning on Tuesday by police investigating an alleged prostitution ring run out of the northern French city of Lille.

Strauss-Kahn can be held for up to 48 hours and may then be placed under formal investigation for benefiting from misappropriated company funds. Investigators are trying to find out whether French executives used corporate expense accounts to fund sex parties with prostitutes.

A former finance minister once seen as a strong contender for France’s 2012 presidential election, Strauss-Kahn’s career and political ambitions came to an abrupt end last May after he was accused of sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid.

He made no comment to waiting reporters as he arrived for questioning at a Lille police station.

BBC News reported that Strauss-Kahn was being treated as a suspect, rather than a witness.

‘Pimping’ suspicion

The Telegraph newspaper, citing unnamed prosecutors speaking Tuesday, said he was to be questioned on suspicion of “pimping and misuse of company funds.”

French police are probing a suspected prostitution ring in France and neighboring Belgium that has implicated police and other officials.

They have questioned prostitutes who said they had sex with Strauss-Kahn during 2010 and 2011 at a luxury hotel in Paris, a restaurant in the French capital and also in Washington, D.C.

Strauss-Kahn lived in the U.S. capital while he was head of the IMF before resigning his position in May.

Video: Does video show a Strauss-Kahn set-up? (on this page)

Two men with ties to Strauss-Kahn have been put under preliminary investigation in France on charges including organizing a prostitution ring and misuse of corporate funds.

Strauss-Kahn’s name surfaced in the investigation last fall and his lawyer has asked that Strauss-Kahn be allowed to tell his side of the story.

Strauss-Kahn admits ‘moral failing’

One of Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers has said that the former French presidential hopeful never knew that the women at orgies he attended were prostitutes.

“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,” Henri Leclerc told French radio Europe 1 in December.

French newspapers have dubbed the investigation “The Carlton Affair” after the name of the expensive Lille hotel where some of the meetings took place.

Latest run-in with police

It is Strauss-Kahn’s latest run-in with police over alleged sexual misconduct.

Strauss-Kahn was charged by New York police in May with making a hotel maid perform oral sex. The one-time French presidential hopeful has said the sexual encounter was “inappropriate” but not violent.

New York prosecutors dropped the case against him in August because the woman had undercut her credibility by lying about her background and changing her account of her actions right after the alleged attack.

Video: DSK Accuser Comes Forward (on this page)

She says she was truthful about the encounter and is pursuing her claims in a lawsuit.

In a separate case last October, French prosecutors refused to pursue an allegation by a young French writer of attempted rape by Strauss-Kahn.

The Paris prosecutor’s office dropped the investigation into writer Tristane Banon’s claim that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during a 2003 interview for a book the then-23-year-old was writing, saying they couldn’t send him to trial because it happened too long ago.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.