Scandal-embattled Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces local accuser

PARIS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the ex-chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on fire of sexual scandal confronted face-to-face on Thursday with Tristane Banon, a French writer who has accused him of attempted rape in 2003.

This was the first encounter between the 62-year-old former IMF chief and 32-year-old writer since Strauss-Kahn returned to Paris early this month after U.S. prosecutors dropped a sexual assault case that the French veteran politician was charged of sexual assault against a hotel maid in New York in May.

The pretrial process in the Paris police criminal investigation department's headquarters has attracted much media attention. The outcome of the meeting is said to decide the worthiness to open a judicial investigation.

The French writer and journalist Banon filed a complaint against Strauss-Kahn in July after the development of the New York case turned in favor of the accused ex-IMF chief whose lawyer found flaws in the credibility of the New York hotel maid.

Banon's allegation dated back to February 2003 when she interviewed Strauss-Kahn for a book. According to what she repeated to the press, Strauss-Kahn, then a Socialist veteran, attacked her during the interview in a Paris apartment.

Strauss-Kahn has denied both allegations relating to sexual assault and insisted Banon's charge out of "imagination," however he admitted a "moral fault" in the New York case.