Dominique Strauss-Kahn quits as IMF chief

Beleaguered International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has quit his post, a day after US treasury secretary Timothy F Geithner, demanded the appointment of an interim managing director for the fund.

Strauss-Kahn, who was planning to contest the French presidential elections, was arrested on Saturday from the first-class cabin of an Air France aircraft that was about to take-off from New York, hours after he allegedly assaulted a woman hotel employee.

Now lodged in a cell in New York, his fate will be decided by a grand jury hearing the testimony of the 32-year-old woman relating to charges of sexual assault. The jury's decision, whether to indict Strauss-Kahn or let him free, will be announced tomorrow.

''It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the executive board my resignation from my post of managing director of the IMF,'' Strauss-Kahn said in a statement to the fund, which was released today. ''I think at this time first of my wife – whom I love more than anything – of my children, of my family, of my friends.''

The politician – he was a former finance minister of France – also denied all the charges against him. ''I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me,'' he told the IMF board.

The IMF has announced that John Lipksy, appointed acting managing director, would continue to head the fund temporarily, till a new chief is appointed.