French prosecutor launches new Strauss-Kahn rape probe

  GREG KELLERPARIS -- A French prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of rape in a Washington hotel by former IMF chief and one-time French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The move by the prosecutor in Lille in northern France followed a request by investigating judges earlier this month to broaden a suspected prostitution probe to examine the claims of rape in December 2010.

The prosecutor's office said in a statement Monday that they are looking into the allegation that Strauss-Kahn may have been involved in a rape during a sex party in the hotel while he was head of the International Monetary Fund.

The married Strauss-Kahn, 63, says whatever happened was consensual, and he has denied doing anything violent. The prominent economist, once a top contender for France's presidency, has seen his career and reputation crumble since he was accused of sexual assault in a New York hotel a year ago.

Strauss-Kahn is already a target in the Lille prostitution probe, which has mushroomed over the past year into a nationwide scandal. He is facing preliminary charges of alleged aggravated pimping, based on accusations by other people questioned in the investigation.

He denies those charges. He has acknowledged being involved in "libertine" activity, while saying that he was unaware of anyone being paid for sex.

French daily Liberation reported this month that two Belgian prostitutes questioned in the Lille probe described Strauss-Kahn as using violence during sex at the W Hotel in Washington and forcing a sexual act on her despite her protests.

Citing leaked transcripts of witness testimony to Belgian police, also involved in the probe, Liberation cited one of the prostitutes as saying that Strauss-Kahn "used force, he held down my hands, he pulled my hair, he hurt me." The woman is quoted as testifying that another man held her hands down while Strauss-Kahn assaulted her.

Neither of the prostitutes has filed legal complaints, but French rules allow for an investigation even without a formal complaint.

Police are handling the preliminary investigation that could end with all suspicions of rape being dropped or lead to an eventual charge.

A statement signed by Strauss-Kahn's three lawyers insisted the probe would show that their client "never committed violent acts nor had any relation whatsoever without the consent of his partners."

The attorneys claimed this new investigation is part of a bid, including by the media, to demolish Strauss-Kahn.

"In this affair, we witness, incredulous and scandalized, a pas-de-deux between the media and justice, unable to tell which one is leading the other, but both motivated by an unremitting will to lead to the downfall of a man," said the statement by Frederique Baulieu and colleagues.

The Lille probe focuses on a suspected prostitution ring involving prominent city figures and police. Prostitutes questioned in the case said they had sex with Strauss-Kahn in 2010 and 2011 at a luxury hotel in Paris, a restaurant in the French capital and also in Washington, D.C., where he lived while working at the Washington-based IMF, judicial officials say.

Strauss-Kahn is also facing a trial in New York over a lawsuit by a hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault in May 2011. A judge ruled this week that the trial can go forward despite Strauss-Kahn's claim that he had diplomatic immunity.

New York prosecutors have dropped criminal charges in the case.

Strauss-Kahn has countersued, filing a $1 million lawsuit against the New York City hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, saying she seriously damaged his reputation with what he calls a bogus allegation.

The disgraced French politician said in court papers filed last week that the Guinean-born Diallo made a "malicious and wanton false accusation" when she said he assaulted her one year ago after she arrived to clean his hotel suite.

A French writer had accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her during an interview in 2003, but prosecutors ruled last year that too much time had passed to pursue her complaint.

All the accusations against Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK in France, prompted discussion in France about ingrained sexism and sexual harassment in politics and business in this country.

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Strauss-Kahn subject of new rape probe in D.C.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, is arraigned Monday, May 16, 2011, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. ( (AP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand, Pool))

  GREG KELLERPARIS -- A French prosecutor on Monday opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of rape in a Washington hotel by former IMF chief and one-time French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The move by the prosecutor in Lille in northern France followed a request by investigating judges earlier this month to broaden a suspected prostitution probe to examine the claims of rape in December 2010.

The prosecutor's office said in a statement that they are looking into the allegation that Strauss-Kahn may have been involved in a rape during a sex party in the hotel while he was head of the International Monetary Fund.

The married Strauss-Kahn, 63, says whatever happened was consensual, and he has denied doing anything violent. The prominent economist, once a top contender for France's presidency, has seen his career and reputation crumble since he was accused of sexual assault in a New York hotel a year ago.

Strauss-Kahn is already a target in the Lille prostitution probe, which has mushroomed over the past year into a nationwide scandal. He is facing preliminary charges of alleged aggravated pimping, based on accusations by other people questioned in the investigation.

He denies those charges. He has acknowledged being involved in "libertine" activity, while saying that he was unaware of anyone being paid for sex.

French daily Liberation reported this month that two Belgian prostitutes questioned in the Lille probe described Strauss-Kahn as using violence during sex at the W Hotel in Washington and forcing a sexual act on her despite her protests.

Citing leaked transcripts of witness testimony to Belgian police, also involved in the probe, Liberation cited one of the prostitutes as saying that Strauss-Kahn "used force, he held down my hands, he pulled my hair, he hurt me." The woman is quoted as testifying that another man held her hands down while Strauss-Kahn assaulted her.

Neither of the prostitutes has filed legal complaints, but French rules allow for an investigation even without a formal complaint.

The Lille probe focuses on a suspected prostitution ring involving prominent city figures and police. Prostitutes questioned in the case said they had sex with Strauss-Kahn in 2010 and 2011 at a luxury hotel in Paris, a restaurant in the French capital and also in Washington, D.C., where he lived while working at the Washington-based IMF, judicial officials say.

Strauss-Kahn is also facing a trial in New York over a lawsuit by a hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault in May 2011. A judge ruled this week that the trial can go forward despite Strauss-Kahn's claim that he had diplomatic immunity.

Strauss-Kahn has countersued, filing a $1 million lawsuit against the New York City hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, saying she seriously damaged his reputation with what he calls a bogus allegation.

The disgraced French politician said in court papers filed last week that the Guinean-born Diallo made a "malicious and wanton false accusation" when she said he assaulted her one year ago after she arrived to clean his hotel suite.

A French writer had accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her during an interview in 2003, but prosecutors ruled last year that too much time had passed to pursue her complaint.

All the accusations against Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK in France, prompted discussion in France about ingrained sexism and sexual harassment in politics and business in this country.

---
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FBI confirms probe of JPMorgan

  PALLAVI GOGOITAMPA, Fla. -- FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday the bureau has launched a preliminary investigation of JPMorgan Chase & Co. following a $2 billion trading loss at the bank.

Mueller's comment at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was the first on-the-record confirmation of the probe.

On Tuesday, a law enforcement official said that the FBI's New York office is heading an inquiry into the JPMorgan loss.

"All I can say is we've opened up a preliminary investigation," Mueller told the Senate panel. Mueller said that opening a preliminary investigation "depends on a number of factors," which he did not enumerate.

Under attorney general guidelines for FBI operations, a preliminary investigation may be initiated on the basis of any allegation or information indicative of possible criminal activity. Time limits are set for completion of preliminary investigations - usually six months, although six-month extensions can be granted. Extensions of preliminary investigations beyond a year must be approved by FBI headquarters.

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Paris prosecutors probe Strauss-Kahn accusation

  By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARDPARIS -- The Paris prosecutor's office said Friday it has opened a preliminary investigation into accusations by a French writer that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her.

The probe comes just as New York prosecutors are weighing whether or not to go ahead with a case in which a chambermaid accused Strauss-Kahn - long considered a top contender for France's presidency - of sexual assault. Questions have surfaced about the maid's credibility, throwing the high-profile case into disarray.

Back in France, novelist and journalist Tristane Banon filed a criminal complaint this week saying that Strauss-Kahn attacked her in an empty apartment in 2003 during an interview for a book project, struggling with her on the floor as he tried to tear off her clothes.

An official in the Paris prosecutor's office said Friday that a preliminary investigation has been opened into the complaint. The official was not authorized to be publicly named because the investigation is under way.

The probe allows investigators from a special police brigade to question Banon and those close to her about the eight-year-old incident.

It could also allow French investigators to question Strauss-Kahn, though most likely not unless and until he returns to France. New York authorities have kept his passport pending a decision on what happens in the case there.

Strauss-Kahn quit as head of the International Monetary Fund after he was arrested in New York in May based on accusations of assault made by a hotel maid. Strauss-Kahn denies wrongdoing, and last week, he was released without bail after prosecutors said publicly that the maid has a history of lying.

Questions have also surfaced about the viability of the French accusation against Strauss-Kahn.

Banon made no official report of being victimized after the alleged attack, and Banon's lawyer has not described any physical evidence that could be brought against Strauss-Kahn.

Banon has acknowledged the difficulty of proving her case, saying she took action to deal with the trauma of the alleged incident and to refute those who say she's been lying.

She said in an interview with the magazine L'Express that Strauss-Kahn grabbed her hand and arm before the two fell to the floor of his apartment and fought for several minutes, with the politician trying to open her jeans and bra and putting his fingers in her mouth and underwear.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have called the incident "imaginary" and threatened to file a criminal complaint accusing Banon of slander.

After the preliminary probe into her claim, which could take weeks or months, the Paris prosecutor's office could decide to drop the case or pursue the investigation, which could eventually lead to a trial.

The probe will help prosecutors determine whether her allegations support a charge of attempted rape, rather than the less serious crime of sexual assault. Under French law, sexual assault is an attack that does not involve an attempt to penetrate the victim. It has a three-year statute of limitations - meaning the 2003 incident would be to old to prosecute - compared with 10 for attempted rape.

---
Angela Charlton contributed to this report.

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UN opens probe into Japan's crippled nuke plant

In this Friday, April 1, 2011 photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), a TEPCO employee points at a crack newly discovered in a maintenance pit on the edge of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The crack was apparently caused by the March 11 earthquake and may have been leaking since then, said the company's spokesman Osamu Yokokura. (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

  By MALCOLM FOSTER and MARI YAMAGUCHITOKYO -- A major international mission to investigate Japan's flooded, radiation-leaking nuclear complex began Tuesday as new information suggested that nuclear fuel had mostly melted in two more reactors in the early days after the March 11 tsunami.

That would mean that all three troubled reactors at the plant have had their cores mostly melted down.

The team of U.N. nuclear experts met with Japanese officials and planned to visit the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in coming days to investigate the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 and assess efforts to stabilize the complex by Tokyo's self-declared deadline of early next year. Meanwhile, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., released a new analysis suggesting that fuel rods in the plant's Units 2 and 3 mostly melted during the early days of the crisis, which had been suspected but not confirmed.

In addition, some chunks of the fuel appeared to have entered the outer containment chambers, causing some damage.

That suggests that the severity of the accident was greater than officials have acknowledged. TEPCO announced similar findings last week about Unit 1.

The new revelations indicate that earlier official assessments may have been too optimistic, said Goshi Hosono, director of Japan's nuclear crisis task force.

"We should have made a more cautious damage estimate based on a worse scenario," he said.

Fuel in three of the plant's six reactors started melting just hours after the March 11 tsunami knocked out cooling systems, prompting huge releases of radiation into the atmosphere - about one-tenth of the radiation released from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to a government estimate.

The melted fuel rods, which appear to have fallen into a lump at the bottom of each of the three pressure vessels, currently pose no immediate problem because they are mostly covered with water being pumped into the chamber and are at temperatures far below dangerous levels, officials say.

The plant is still leaking radiation, but at much lower levels than immediately after the accident, and Japanese officials hope to bring the entire plant to a "cold shutdown" - halting all radioactive leaks - by January at the latest.

In the meantime, 80,000 people remain evacuated from homes around the plant. Many are living in school gymnasiums. A handful of stalwarts have defied government orders and refused to leave.

"TEPCO caused such a horrible disaster. Leaving my home means I have lost to TEPCO," said Naoto Matsumura, a 51-year-old rice and vegetable farmer who has stayed at his home despite radiation concerns and a lack of electricity and running water.

"Certainly, life is not comfortable at all," he said. "But I will not give up."

Violators of a 12-mile (20-kilometer) exclusion zone can face fines of up to 100,000 yen ($1,200) or 30 days of detention, but no officials have moved to arrest him, he said.

The team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency conferred Tuesday with Japan's economy and trade minister, who oversees - and promotes - the nuclear industry, and will visit Japan through June 2 before reporting to an international conference in Vienna on June 20.

Michael Weightman, leader of the IAEA team, said the delegation would "seek information to see how the world can learn lessons from the unfortunate events here."

Hosono said the team had submitted a "long list" of questions, and that authorities would do their best to answer them.

The government also said it was appointing University of Tokyo Professor Yotaro Hatamura, an expert on industrial and other accidents, to head a panel of outside experts to investigate the Fukushima accident.

The crisis has raised serious questions about lax oversight of Japan's nuclear industry and prompted the country to scrap plans to rely on nuclear power for half its electricity needs - up from its current one third.

The quake and tsunami, which left more than 24,000 people dead or missing, also damaged farms, ports and hundreds of suppliers, helping to push Japan's economy back into recession.

Workers at the troubled plant are now trying to figure out what to do with massive amounts of radioactive water leaking from the reactor cores into the reactor and turbine buildings, trenches and pits.

In the latest setback, TEPCO said containers holding radioactive water pumped from those areas were nearly full, raising concerns that the water could overflow and leak into the sea again.

Under a revised roadmap released last week, TEPCO plans to install reprocessing equipment that would pump contaminated water out of the turbine basements where it is pooling and put it back into the reactor as coolant.

The utility also plans to put a special cover over each reactor building to contain radiation releases.

Given the greater-than-expected damage to the reactors, some experts question whether the company will be able to bring the plant under control by early next year.

Of the remaining reactors at the plant, Unit 4 had no fuel rods inside its core at the time of the tsunami, but workers have struggled to keep cool its cache of used fuel rods. Units 5 and 6 were brought into a cold shutdown in late March.

---
Associated Press writer Shino Yuasa contributed to this report.

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Man held in car bomb probe deported to Pakistan

  Eyewitness NewsBOSTON -- A Pakistani man arrested in Massachusetts during the investigation of the failed New York Times Square car bombing was deported to Pakistan on Sunday, federal authorities said.

Aftab Ali Khan, 28, was accompanied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on a flight from Logan International Airport to Islamabad, the agency said in a statement. Khan, his uncle and a man in Maine were arrested on immigration violations nearly two weeks after the failed bombing attempt on May 1, 2010.

Khan pleaded guilty last month to immigration and illegal money-transfer charges and was sentenced to time served. He did not face terrorism-related charges.

Khan, who lived in Watertown, came to the U.S. in August 2009 on a 90-day visa to get married.

Prosecutors alleged that Khan gave $4,900 to Faisal Shahzad, of Bridgeport, Conn., who was later convicted in the bombing attempt.

They said it was part of a transaction to get an equivalent amount of money to Khan's family in Pakistan.

Khan is not accused of knowing what Shahzad would do with the money. But investigators say they uncovered fraudulent immigration documents and that Khan lied to them while they were investigating the Shahzad case.

Shahzad, who admitted leaving an SUV rigged with a homemade bomb in busy Times Squares, was arrested trying to leave the country on a Dubai-bound flight two days later. He was sentenced to life in prison.

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