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Lille - Former International Monetary Fund (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.
Strauss-Kahn quit his IMF post after
the New York sex assault case broke, although criminal charges were later
dropped. Linked later to the Lille affair, Strauss-Kahn said that he wanted to
talk to police over the case.
The probe is focused on a prostitution ring that allegedly
supplied clients of Lille’s luxury Carlton Hotel. Police want to establish
whether Strauss-Kahn knew that women at sex parties he attended in Paris and Washington
were prostitutes.
Eight people - including two Lille businessmen close to
Strauss-Kahn and a police commissioner - have been arrested in the case, and
construction firm Eiffage fired an executive suspected of using company funds
to hire sex workers.
Using prostitutes is not illegal in France, but Strauss-Kahn
risks being charged if investigators decide he knew the women at the sex
parties were prostitutes or that company funds were used to pay them.
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Henri Leclerc has said his client had
no reason to think the women at sex parties he attended were prostitutes.
Attempted-rape accusations brought against Strauss-Kahn last
year by a Parisian writer were shelved by police in October.
The New York maid is pursuing him in a civil action.
