Saretto

Pressure rises against IMF chief held at NYC jail

NEW YORK – Pressure built Tuesday for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to consider resigning as chief of the International Monetary Fund after he was charged with trying to rape a maid at a New York hotel.

Strauss-Kahn spent the night at the infamous Rikers Island, a 400-acre penal complex, after being denied bail Monday. Prosecutors had warned the wealthy banker might flee to France and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law like the filmmaker Roman Polanski.

Strauss-Kahn's weekend arrest rocked the financial world as the IMF grapples with the European debt crisis, and it upended French presidential politics. Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Austria's finance minister suggested Tuesday that Strauss-Kahn consider stepping down to avoid damaging the IMF, which provides emergency loans to countries in severe distress and tries to maintain global financial stability.

"Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself that he is hurting the institution," Maria Fekter said as she arrived at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels.

Elena Salgado, Fekter's Spanish counterpart, said Strauss-Kahn had to decide for himself whether he wanted to step down, considering the "extraordinarily serious" nature of the charges.

"If I had to show my solidarity and support for someone it would be toward the woman who has been assaulted, if that is really the case that she has been," she said.

In France, defenders of Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister who had topped the polls as a possible candidate in presidential elections next year, said they suspected he was the victim of a smear campaign. Others expressed sympathy.

"I didn't like the pictures I've seen on television," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday night, referring to footage that showed Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs being escorted by police outside a New York precinct house.

Showing a suspect in handcuffs is illegal in France since a 2000 law aimed at the preserving the presumption of innocence.

The 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn was arrested Saturday at Kennedy Airport after the allegations at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square.

Making his first court appearance Monday, a grim-looking Strauss-Kahn stood slumped before a judge in a dark raincoat and open-collared shirt. The silver-haired banker said nothing as a lawyer professed his innocence and strove in vain to get him released on bail.

"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told scores of reporters outside the courthouse, adding that Strauss-Kahn might appeal the bail denial.