Strauss-Kahn admits to ‘moral error’

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, on Sunday broke his public silence for the first time over allegations of a sexual assault on a hotel maid, which cost him his job.

Four months after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault, Straus-Khan insisted there was no coercion or violence involved in his nine-minute relationship with her. He called it a ''moral error'' on his part.

Strauss-Kahn, earlier a top contender for French president, also denied using violence on a French writer who also claims he tried to rape her in a 2003 incident.

In what commentators have called a ''heavily scripted'' 20-minute Sunday night interview with a French TV channel, Strauss-Kahn tried to sound contrite. He said his 14 May sexual encounter with African immigrant Nafissatou Diallo, who claimed he attacked her when she entered his room in Manhattan's Sofitel hotel to clean it, "did not involve violence, constraint or aggression".

He said, ''It was a moral failing and I am not proud of it. I regret it infinitely. I have regretted it every day for the past four months and I think I'm not done regretting it."

He added that it "was not only an inappropriate relationship, but more than that, it was a failing ... a failing vis-a-vis my wife, my children and my friends, but also a failing vis-a-vis the French people, who had vested their hopes for change in me".