Ex IMF chief Strauss-Kahn's trial begins

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) went to trial in Lille, France, on Monday in a case of alleged procuring of prostitutes.

Strauss-Kahn wore a black suit, white shirt and tie as he drove up the courthouse with his three defense lawyers. He did not stop to address the nearly 300 journalists gathered outside the courtroom in Lille.

Investigating magistrates charged Strauss-Kahn with "pimping," which in French law could mean any activity seen as facilitating prostitution. The former IMF head was accused of dealing with prostitutes or "procuring with aggravating circumstances," when taking part in sex parties in Paris, Lille and Washington from 2008 to 2011.

Prosecutors alleged that Strauss-Kahn allowed his rented apartment to be used for sex parties involving prostitutes and that he was involved in organizing them. The case came to be known as the Carlton affair after a hotel in Lille.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was appointed the French finance Minister in the late 1990s and became an influential economist after he was named head of the International Monetary Fund in 2007.

His skyrocketing career came to a halt after a maid at the Sofitel hotel in 2011 in New York accused him of sexual assault. Charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped and the case was settled in a civil suit, but the former IMF chief's name resurfaced in an investigation into a prostitution ring some six months later.

mg/rc (Reuters, AFP)