[CA.NEWS.YAHOO] A French prosecutor asked a criminal court on Tuesday to acquit former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of a pimping charge for his role in what investigating magistrates argued was an organized sex ring using prostitutes.Strauss-Kahn was tipped to become French president before being accused of sexual assault by a New York hotel chambermaid in 2011. U.S. criminal charges were subsequently dropped, and the allegations that he participated in a French sex ring centered in the northern French city of Lille emerged later.
"Did Dominique Strauss-Kahn pay prostitutes? The answer is no. Did he pimp prostitutes for others? The answer is no," Lille Prosecutor Frederic Fevre told the court before requesting Strauss-Kahn's acquittal.
| "Did he accept the services of prostitutes as a gift, whether from the prostitutes or from those who paid them? Well yes, but a man cannot be expected to forgo a few birthday presents, however early or belated," Mr Fevre continued. |
Investigating magistrates, who originally sent the case against Strauss-Kahn to trial over the objections of the same prosecutor, argued that the prominent Socialist was the instigator of parties involving prostitutes from 2008 to 2011 in Lille, Brussels, Paris and Washington.
Under French law, investigating magistrates have the right to overrule prosecutors' initial recommendations to drop a case.