IMF chief denied bail

US$1 million in cash and surrender all his travel documents.
The judge ordered the IMF chief detained, two days after he was pulled off a plane and accused of trying to rape a Manhattan hotel chambermaid.
Judge Melissa Jackson said he should be remanded because he was “a flight risk” after being charged on Saturday with sexual assault and attempted rape. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers had also said that the IMF chief would live with his daughter in New York if he were granted bail.
Strauss-Kahn was denied the attempted rape of a hotel chambermaid in a New York courtroom yesterday as a second sex assault accusation further dashed his prospects of becoming French president.
A haggard-looking Strauss-Kahn, wearing a black raincoat and a light-blue shirt, appeared in the court presided over by Judge Jackson, leaving for about an hour before returning again, not in handcuffs.
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman said his client would vigorously defend himself against claims that he trapped the maid in a luxury Manhattan hotel and sexually assaulted her on Saturday.
The wood-lined courtroom was packed with journalists, mingling with members of the public. A French consulate representative was also present. The alleged victim, employed for the past three years at the luxury Sofitel hotel near Times Square, picked Strauss-Kahn out of a line-up on Sunday, as police said they had won a warrant to seek DNA evidence on his clothes.
“He intends to vigorously defend these charges and denies any wrongdoing,” Brafman told reporters.
The bombshell news of the arrest of one of the world’s most powerful men has left the IMF reeling, ahead of critical talks in Brussels yesterday on the fallout of the debt crisis sweeping the eurozone.
Strauss-Kahn (62) has hired a barrage of top lawyers, as questions swirled over whether he could escape prosecution.
But late on Sunday, a New York police spokesman said the IMF chief did not have the right to diplomatic immunity.
Another lawyer, William Taylor, told journalists outside a Manhattan courthouse that the arraignment was postponed until yesterday so Strauss-Kahn could undergo further testing by police.
“Our client willingly consented to a scientific and forensic examination,” Taylor said.
A former finance minister, Strauss-Kahn had been expected to throw his hat into the ring for the 2012 French election, challenging President Nicolas Sarkozy.
He also faces the prospect of a similar accusation back in France after lawyers for a 31-year-old French writer said she would be making a complaint alleging Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002. Tristane Banon previously made the allegation against Strauss-Kahn in 2007 on television, but she had not lodged a formal complaint with authorities.
“We’re planning to make a complaint. I am working with her,” Banon’s lawyer David Koubbi said.
The woman at the center of the claims in New York, who reports said came to the United States from Guinea, alleged Strauss-Kahn had assaulted her in his suite when he got out of his shower naked.
“She was in the room. She thought it was empty. That’s when he approached her from behind and touched her inappropriately. He forced her to perform a sexual act on him,” a police spokesman told AFP.
He described the victim as “female, black, 32 years old,” but could not confirm reports that the IMF chief forced the maid to perform oral sex on him and sexually assaulted her twice after locking the door to the suite.
Strauss-Kahn, so well known in France he is often referred to simply as DSK, had been topping the polls for the presidency even though he has not yet declared his candidacy.
News of his arrest threw the Socialist party into disarray, and could prove a boost for Sarkozy, who is also facing a challenge from Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front.
The arrest triggered speculation across France that Strauss-Kahn had been set up for political motives, either because of his position as IMF chief or as a potential election candidate.
It is not the first time that Strauss-Kahn has been tainted by scandal.
In 2008, he was discovered to be having an affair with a Hungarian IMF economist, but the IMF concluded he had not exerted pressure on the woman, although it noted his inappropriate behaviour. – AFP.