Leave me alone, pleads former IMF chief

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has pleaded to be left alone and says he is facing a "media assault" in an interview with French weekly Le Point. "I have never been convicted, not in (France) nor in any other country," he said in the interview.

"Therefore nothing justifies my being the object of a media assault that some days resembles a manhunt." Strauss-Kahn, a one-time contender for the French presidency, suffered a stunning fall from grace following his arrest at a New York hotel on sexual assault charges last year and a subsequent string of sex-related investigations in France.

In the interview, he denounced the media scrutiny he has faced since returning to France after the US charges were dropped. "I can no longer tolerate that there is an assumed right to take advantage of my situation - and the probes wrongly targeting me- to trample on my privacy," he said. "Leave me alone!"