Strauss-Kahn regrets sex with maid, denies rape bids

[1]

Former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn admitted on Sunday his encounter with a New York hotel maid had been a 'moral failing' but insisted he had neither tried to rape her nor another woman.

Strauss-Kahn said he had let down both his loyal wife and the French people and admitted he had abandoned his hopes of running from president, but denied he had resorted to violence in his relations with the two younger women.

The 62-year-old Socialist politician and economist was speaking in public for the first time since he returned to France after the New York case and since being questioned by French detectives over the second case.

Interviewed on the TF1 network news by Claire Chazal, a friend of his wife, Strauss-Kahn adopted a combative tone but regretful words, trying to rescue his reputation at the expense of his immediate political prospects.

"What happened involved neither violence nor constraint, no criminal act," he told Chazal, when asked what had happened in his Manhattan hotel suite on May 14, shortly before his arrest on sexual assault charges.

Seven-minute encounter with maid

Strauss-Kahn described his seven-minute encounter with maid Nafissatou Diallo as a 'moral failing of which I am not proud' but insisted investigators found "no scratches, no wounds, no sign of violence" on her body.

He also denied attacking Tristane Banon, a young French writer who is the daughter of a family friend as 30 years his junior, who has lodged a complaint alleging he tried to rape her in an empty Paris flat in 2003.

Again Strauss-Kahn did not deny that there had been an encounter, but said: "I was interviewed as a witness. I told the truth that in this meeting there had been no aggression, no violence, I will say no more.

"The version that has been reported is imaginary, slanderous," he added.

DSK to take time on political career

Despite his denials, however, he admitted that he could 'obviously' no longer be a candidate for next year's presidential elections, and said he would play no role in the debate surrounding upcoming Socialist primary.

Instead, he said he would "take time to reflect" before deciding on whether to resume his political career.