Mosley Stands By His Story After Further Details Emerge

Max Mosley's position as president of the FIA was further compromised yesterday when the News of the World published more details and transcripts of his meeting with five prostitutes in London and said it would be sending videos of his visit to a Chelsea flat to the governing body's senate and general assembly.

Mosley is persisting with his threat to sue the newspaper for "unlimited damages" for invading his privacy despite a prostitute's account which claimed that alleged Nazi role-playing, consistently denied by the 67-year-old president throughout the past week, had been part of the assignation.

In a leader column the newspaper stated: "We absolutely refute and challenge his assertion that we have invented any elements of his depravity. Which is why we plan to send copies of our video evidence to senate members representing the global motor racing community, which will decide on the future of the president. Their own statutes decree anyone who inflicts 'moral injury' on the FIA by 'words, deeds or writings' may be expelled."

Mosley's schedule is not believed to include attending the next race, the Spanish grand prix at the Circuit de Catalunya on April 27, despite its being the venue for the planned official launch of the Racing Against Racism initiative resulting from racial abuse directed at Lewis Hamilton during a winter test session there. The king of Spain is due to attend the race; Mosley's invitation to the Bahrain grand prix was revoked in a personal letter from the ruling family's crown prince.

Mosley, the youngest son of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, insisted on Saturday that he had "done nothing wrong" and that his actions were "harmless and completely legal" and he is continuing his attempt to convene a meeting of the governing body's general assembly, made up of 222 clubs in 134 countries, in order to seek a vote of confidence. He requires a faxed vote approval from the senate, which is expected by the end of this week, to invite the general assembly for a special meeting. Logistics make it unlikely that the egm could be arranged before the Spanish grand prix, although it must be arranged within three months of the request.

The senate is headed by Michel Boeri, a Monaco lawyer, who has been in charge of the Automobile Club de Monaco since the 1970s. Also on the senate are the two deputy presidents Marco Piccinini, once team manager of Ferrari, and Franco Lucchesi, both from Italy; Henri Krausz, a long-time Mosley ally who now represents Mexico but has previously sat on the world council as a representative of both Venezuela and the Dominican Republic; Peter Meyer, president of Germany's ADAC which has already come out against Mosley; the president of the Malaysian automobile association, HH Tunku Mudzaffar; Tianshu Shi, representing China; and Edouardo Silva Araya of Chile's automobile club.

Sir Jackie Stewart, who has had a long-running feud with Mosley, said yesterday that he feared sponsors might turn their backs on the sport if the controversy was allowed to continue. "In this sport you are talking about multinational corporations because it's global," he said. "What's going on right now could damage them because, if you are a multinational corporation, corporate ethics are part and parcel of

daily business.

"If you were such an organization and the chairman or CEO was excited about coming into formula one, the marketing director might say, 'There's a lot of stuff going on at the moment; why don't we hold back until we see how they are going to handle it?' So the sport is vulnerable when it comes to moral issues and if it's called 'scandal', because that affects the sport as a whole and the perception of it by some cultures and religions we are exposed to. If we go to a Muslim country or to a large Jewish organization, because of what has occurred they might put any plans on hold."