Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be Serbia economic adviser despite pimp charges

BELGRADE, Serbia — Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who faces aggravated pimping charges in France, will serve as an economic adviser for Serbia’s top officials, the Balkan country’s deputy prime minister said.

Aleksandar Vucic told state television late Thursday that Strauss-Kahn will advise him and Serbia’s prime minister and finance minister on restructuring the country’s large foreign debt.

Vucic, a powerful Serbian politician, asserted that the charges against Strauss-Kahn did not tarnish his reputation as a financial expert. To claim they have, Vucic said, would be as illogical as saying Pablo Picasso’s abilities as a painter should be judged by his unfair treatment of some of the women and children in his life.

The French case revolves around an alleged hotel prostitution ring and hinges on whether Strauss-Kahn knew he was partying with prostitutes and whose money was used to pay them. His lawyers have said Strauss-Kahn had attended “libertine” gatherings but did not know that some women there were paid.

No trial date has been set for Strauss-Khan and 13 other people in France, a country where it is not illegal to pay for sex, but it is against the law to solicit or to run a prostitution business.

The case put Strauss-Kahn, 64, back in the spotlight after his arrest in New York in May 2011, based on allegations by a Manhattan hotel maid that he had sexually assaulted her. He resigned as IMF chief before those charges were dropped.

Vucic said that former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, who worked as a consultant for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, will become Serbian government’s political adviser.