Post date: Feb 26, 2013 6:33:46 PM
The impending publication of a book recounting details of a writer's romantic liaison with Dominique Strauss-Kahn drives the former IMF chief out of silence.
PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 26, 2013) (REUTERS) - Dominique Strauss-Kahn was once again in the media spotlight on Tuesday (February 26) as the impending publication of a kiss-and-tell book recounting intimate details of his affair with a writer drove the disgraced former IMF chief to speak out against the work.
Strauss-Kahn -- dubbed "DSK" -- made a rare public appearance in court in an attempt to stop the book, written by former lover Marcela Iacub, hitting the shelves on Wednesday.Though the book "Belle et Bete" makes no specific mention of the politician widely assumed to have harboured French presidential ambitions, Iacub named Strauss-Kahn as the inspiration for the work in an interview with French magazine Nouvel Observateur.
It relates in explicit detail her relationship with Strauss-Kahn during the first few months of 2012, following his return from the United States at a time when he was battling a string of sex scandals at home.
The title of the work is a play on words between 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Pretty and Stupid'.
Speaking at Paris's main courthouse on Tuesday, Strauss-Kahn said he was "disgusted" by the text which he described as untruthful, slamming the process through which it had been produced as dishonest.
DSK fell from grace in May 2011, when he was arrested on suspicion of attempting to rape a New York hotel chambermaid. Prosecutors in the U.S. dropped the charges and he returned to France in September that year.
He returned to face accusations by at least one woman in France that he attempted to assault her but French judges decided not to proceed for lack of evidence. He remains under formal investigation over allegations of aggravated pimping linked to claims he was supplied with prostitutes by businessmen in the northern city of Lille who were trying to seek favour with him.