MADRID, April 20, 2008 (AFP) - One of Latin America´s best known writers has defended FIA president Max Mosley, who is facing calls to step down over claims that he indulged in a Nazi-themed sado-masochistic orgy with five prostitutes.

In a column published Sunday in top-selling daily Spanish newspaper El Pais, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa wrote that Mosley´s sexual tastes "are an issue that only matter to him".

"In a free and democratic society, people´s sexual life, just like their religious and political life, shouldn´t have any limitation other than that which is set out in laws aimed at defending citizens from abuse and violence," he said.

"What couples, individuals or groups do out of mutual acord, that is within those limits, is a matter that only concerns them," the 72-year-old author added.

British tabloid The News of the World reported on the sex acts on March 30 and posted a 90-second clip of them on its web site which was picked up by television stations around the world.

Mosley, 68, admits visiting the prostitutes but denies there was any Nazi connotation to their sexual activities.

He faces a vote of confidence at an extraordinary hearing of the world motor sport´s governing body scheduled for June 3 at its Paris headquarters.

But amid calls from some Formula 1 drivers, manufacturers and leading figures for him to go for bringing the sport into disrepute, he has said he wants to be able to complete his term and step down voluntarily next year.

In an interview published in the Sunday Telegraph Mosley said the criticisms he has faced are "based on the idea that somehow you can´t have in your life any sort of sexual activity that´s at all eccentric".

Mosley has been FIA boss since 1993.

Llosa has written over 30 novels and plays, including "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter", based in part on his first marriage, "The War at the End of the World" and "Death in the Andes".