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IMF CHIEF ON SUICIDE WATCH AS HE IS PRESSURED TO RESIGN

 
Published May 18, 2011

Associated Press

NEW YORK - International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was placed on a suicide watch in jail while pressure mounted on him to resign Tuesday. Meanwhile, the hotel maid who accused him of attempted rape said through her lawyer that she had no idea who he was when she reported him to the police.

Law enforcement officials said Strauss-Kahn, 62, had not tried to harm himself, but guards were keeping a close watch on him just in case. He was arrested Saturday and is being held without bail at the city's Rikers Island jail.

Police and prosecutors said he ambushed a housekeeper who had come to clean his $3,000-per-night suite at a New York hotel. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said the evidence doesn't support accusations of forcible sex.

The woman's attorney, Jeffrey Shapiro, contested that claim. He also told the Associated Press that "she did not know who this man was until a day or two after this took place."

Strauss-Kahn's accuser is a 32-year-old immigrant from the West African nation of Guinea with a 15-year-old daughter. The family was granted asylum in the United States, and the woman is a legal resident, Shapiro said.