Randy IMF Boss Under Suicide Watch

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was placed under a suicide watch in jail, while pressure mounted on him to resign Tuesday and the hotel maid who accused him of attempted rape said through her lawyer that she had no idea who he was when she reported him to the police.

According to The Associated Press, AP, law enforcement officials emphasised that Strauss-Kahn had not tried to harm himself but that guards were keeping a close watch on him just in case.

Strauss-Kahn’s American lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said Monday that he believes that once all of the physical evidence is in, his client will be exonerated.

All prisoners arriving at Rikers Island are given a mental health assessment to determine whether they pose a suicide risk. Norman Seabrook, president of the correction officers union, said Strauss-Kahn did or said something during that evaluation that made doctors concerned, and he is being monitored day and night.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of prisoner medical information, said Strauss-Kahn had not tried to harm himself.

Because of his stature, Strauss-Kahn has been assigned to a section of the Rikers Island jail that normally houses prisoners with highly contagious diseases, like measles or tuberculosis. Corrections spokesman Stephen Morello said Strauss-Kahn has been placed in a wing with about 14 cells, all of them empty except for his.

The cell has a toilet and a sink. He takes his meals there, with breakfast at 5 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m. and dinner at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, details began to emerge about his accuser, a 32-year-old immigrant from the West African nation of Guinea with a 15-year-old daughter.

“There is no way in which there is any aspect of this event which could be construed consensual in any manner. This is nothing other than a physical, sexual assault by this man on this young woman,” her attorney, Jeffrey Shapiro, told The Associated Press. He added: “She did not know who this man was until a day or two after this took place.”

Strauss-Kahn, the 62-year-old managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested Saturday and is being held without bail at the city’s Rikers Island jail, kept apart from his fellow prisoners in a unit that normally houses inmates with contagious diseases.