IMF Head Held on Sexual Assault Charge

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David Steven

Extraordinary news here in New York where the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn was this afternoon hauled out of the first class cabin of an Air France plane at JFK airport to be arrested for – allegedly – sexually assaulting the chambermaid in his room at the Sofitel Hotel.

According to the New York Times, Strauss-Kahn fled to the airport after the attack, leaving his mobile phone in his room, but was apprehended just 10 minutes before the plane was due to depart.

Strauss-Kahn, who had been expected to run for French President, was embroiled in asex scandal back in 2008, when he slept with an IMF employee at Davos, and was then accused of ushering her into a new job outside the Fund. Unlike the World Bank’s Paul Wolfowitz, who was forced out for giving preferential treatment to his partner, Strauss-Kahn kept his job.

Ironically, it was only on Friday that the Guardian ran an article by French journalist,Melissa Bounoua, lauding the open-mindedness of the French voter, who she claimed would happily have Strauss-Kahn as President, even if he were a serial shagger for whom consent wasn’t that big a deal.

Is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, current head of the International Monetary Fund, a “queutard” – literally, a man who makes extensive use of his intimate parts?[...] Strauss-Kahn (widely known as DSK) had an affair with Piroska Nagy, a Hungarian economist, while working at the IMF in 2008…

That wasn’t the only scandal. There was a fuss last year when a young French author, Tristane Banon, described her encounter with him. She explained that she had interviewed him for a book about public figures and their missteps, and claimed she had to fight him off physically…

“Personally, I doubt this side of DSK’s life would have any influence on how he would run the country,” Ms Bounoua claims in an article that makes all the usual excuses for the sexual proclivities of the powerful and is hailed, rather breathlessly, by the Guardian’s Jessica Reed as giving readers “sex, power, politics AND… a new French word: queutard.”

One wonders how Ms Bounoua and the Guardian will react to this new ‘fuss’…

Update: It’s worth remembering that ugly, if unproven, rumours have swirled round Strauss-Kahn for many years. Here’s Felix Salmon – now with Reuters, and one of the best financial journalists around – discussing the Frenchman’s ‘lower half problem’ in 2007 before he took over at the IMF.

Salmon quoted French journalist Chris Masse’s account of a previous Strauss-Kahn ‘fuss’:

A cable TV show (“93 Faubourg Saint Honoré”, on Paris Premiere, hosted by Thierry Ardisson) invited a young (and unknown to me) French actress. I don’t remember her name. She said that she had a bad encounter with Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Here’s what happened. She was asked to come in a little apartment he had in Paris, and then the next thing, Strauss-Kahn jumped on her and tried to undress her and more. She yelled, and told him that that was a rape, but the word “rape” (“viol” in French) didn’t seem to perturb him. She said that he was like “a gorille en rut” (a gorilla in rut).

Paul: IMF Implicated After Chief Arrested on Attempted Rape Charge

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The leader of the International Monetary Fund now embroiled in a criminal assault case in New York City was cleared in 2008 of harassment charges after an affair with an IMF economist.

But it's that kind of behavior that should make the world wonder about trusting the IMF, Rep. Ron Paul said Sunday.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate told "Fox News Sunday" that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was pulled off an Air France flight moments before take-off from New York Saturday and arrested on charges of a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment, said the whole course of events "is a bit ironic."

Paul, who makes no secret about his disgust of IMF policies, said Strauss-Kahn demonstrates why the Fund has problems.

"These are the kind of people that are running the IMF and we want to turn the world finances and the control of the money supply to them," Paul said. "That should awaken everybody to the fact that they ought to look into the IMF and find out why we shouldn't be sacrificing more sovereignty to an organization like that and an individual like he was."

Strauss-Kahn, 62, is scheduled for arraignment Sunday after being accused by a 32-year-old maid at the luxury Sofitel hotel near Times Square of an attack on her in his suite on Saturday afternoon.

The IMF chief, who is considered a frontrunner in challenging Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency, "denies all the charges against him," his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said Sunday.

A State Department press officer said she had no comment on last night's arrest. Though a New York City police spokesman said Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity, the officer could not say with certainty whether that's accurate, but said the department is reviewing his status.

The IMF also said it's not commenting on the arrest but issued a statement saying, "The IMF remains fully functioning and operational." The Wall Street Journal reported that John Lipsky, Strauss-Kahn's first deputy, has been in the acting managing director role since Strauss-Kahn left D.C. for New York.

It's not the first time that the thrice-married Strauss-Kahn has been in trouble for his relationships. In 2008, an outside lawyer hired by the IMF to investigate three complaints made about Strauss-Kahn's behavior concluded that he did not force an ex-lover to accept a payout from the IMF and move to another organization.

The executive board at the IMF took no action against Strauss-Kahn but warned him about behavior toward female staff. Strauss-Kahn reportedly offered an apology to the board. His wife, French newswoman Anne Sinclair, wrote it off as a "one night stand."

At the time, French commentators claimed the investigation's timing was suspicious since it coincided with the IMF push toward a global currency.

"It's very odd that it comes just at the moment when people are talking about the IMF and its head taking a lead role in creating a new global financial order which will not necessarily be to the advantage of wealthy, right-wing Americans," a French economist and government adviser told Britain's Observer newspaper.

But Paul said the IMF's moves toward a world currency are "a threat to us."

"I would like to go to a sound American currency, but others want to go to a world currency. They want to use the IMF," he said.