IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn under suicide watch in New York jail

Arrested on charge of sexual assault, the managing director of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-Dominique Strauss-Kahn-has been placed under a suicide watch in jail as pressure mounted on him to resign.
 
Law enforcement officials emphasised that Strauss-Kahn had not tried to harm himself, but guards were keeping a close watch on him at New York's Rikers Island jail.
 
{mosimage}The 62-year-old IMF chief was arrested on Saturday and was denied bail on Tuesday. He was being kept away from fellow prisoners in a unit that normally houses inmates with contagious diseases.
 
Norman Seabrook, the president of NYC Corrections Officers Benevolent Association and corrections officer at Rikers Island said: "He is in protective custody. He has a suicide watch on him done by a mental health evaluator."
 
"When you come into the system you are evaluated by doctors, psychologists and they deemed it necessary to put a suicide watch on him. So he is watched and monitored 24 hours a day while he is in the custody of the New York City Department of Corrections," Seabrook added.
 
The hotel maid, who accused Strauss-Kahn of attempting to rape her, said on Tuesday through her lawyer that she had no idea who he was when she reported him to the police.
 
Police and prosecutors said he had ambushed the housekeeper, who had gone to clean his $3,000 thousand per night suite at a New York hotel. The complainant is a 32-year-old immigrant from the west African nation Guinea with a 15-year-old daughter.
 
Her lawyer Jeffrey J. Shapiro said: "This young woman worked in this hotel, was sent in this room to clean this room having no idea who this man was. In fact, didn't find out who he was, or who he purports to be in this world, until many hours if not a day afterwards. Look, you can make any claim you want, you can blame the victim of a crime for the crime. The fact of the matter is that is simply not true."

Courtesy: Headlines Today