LILLE, FRANCE // Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday denied knowing the women he took part in sex parties with were prostitutes, as he took the stand at his French trial on charges of aggravated pimping.
The former finance minister, whose presidential prospects were torpedoed by an earlier sex scandal, appeared tense as he answered questions from the lead judge.
“I committed no crime, no offence,” Strauss-Kahn said in a letter read out to the court by the judge in the northern city of Lille.
He also said that the sex parties he attended were few and far between, and that there was none of the “wild activity” of which he is accused.
Asked if he was aware the women at the parties were prostitutes – the crux of the case against him – Strauss-Kahn responded “no”.
The 65-year-old, known as DSK in France, argues he merely sengaged in orgies with consenting adults and did not know the women were paid.
Strauss-Kahn sat arms folded, occasionally sighing heavily as one of the prostitutes, Mounia Rabou, took the stand to testify against him, revealing sordid details of the soirees.
The trial is the latest in a series of cases offering a peek behind the bedroom door of a man once tipped as a potential challenger to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
France was stunned when it saw Strauss-Kahn paraded handcuffed in front of the world’s cameras after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault in May 2011 – a case that was eventually settled in a civil suit.
