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Max Mosley (picture) had been due to attend this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix but is expected to stay away on the advice of Formula One's commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone, who is himself Jewish.
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LONDON (EJP)---Max Mosley, president of the Formula One Federation, has apologised to motor racing's world governing body for any embarrassment caused by a report about his sexual conduct in a tabloid British newspaper.
But the president of the 'Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile' or FIA said he had no intention of resigning over the scandal.
The News of the World reported at the weekend how Mosley spent five hours with five prostitutes in an underground "torture chamber" in a west London flat last Friday indulging in a Nazi-style sado-masochistic sex.
In the pictures shown by the newspaper, Mosley reenacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate.
The 67-year-old Mosley is the son of the Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley who was a friend of Adolf Hitler.
In a letter sent to all national FIA clubs and bodies, Mosley blamed a "covert" operation aimed at discrediting him and said he intends to take legal action against the newspaper and that he would not stand down.
"From information provided to me by an impeccable high-level source close to the UK police and security services, I understand that over the last two weeks or so a covert investigation of my private life and background has been undertaken by a group specialising in such things, for reasons and clients as yet unknown. I have had similar but less well sourced information from France."
"I will not allow any of this to impede my commitment to the FIA," Mosley added in the letter.
Mosley said that he spoke in German during the orgy with the five prostitutes not because he was fantasising about being a Nazi but because several of the prostitutes involved were German speakers.
British Jewish groups have condemned Mosley, who is one of the most powerful men in world sport, of insulting the victims of the Holocaust.
Stephen Smith, director of London's Holocaust Centre, told The Times newspaper: "This is an insult to millions of victims, survivors and their families." "He should apologise. He should resign from the sport," he said.
Mosley had been due to attend this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix but he is expected to stay away on the advice of Formula One's commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone, who is himself Jewish.