DSK held in custody as suspect in a prostitution ring inquiry

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF boss, is being questioned by French police as a suspect in a prostitution ring inquiry, a prosecutor announced today.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, once a front-runner for the French presidency, is being held in custody at a police station in Lille, northern France.

Police have questioned a number of prostitutes who have admitted having sex with Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

DSK insists he did not know that the women were prostitutes.

“I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” dominique Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Henri Leclerc has told French television.

DSK resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May 2011 after he was charged in New York with the attempted rape of a hotel maid. The case was later dropped.

In this separate inquiry, French police have already arrested eight men on suspicion of organizing a prostitution ring and misusing corporate funds to pay for sex in a scandal known as the “Carlton affair” because of a Lille hotel where clients were allegedly supplied with call-girls.

Three of the suspects were said to have been close to DSK, who is said to have taken part in sex parties in Paris and Washington in late 2010 and early 2011.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn could be held by police for up to 48 hours, French media say.

Although consorting with prostitutes is legal in France, supplying them to others and misusing company funds to pay for them are not.