The New York hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault has gone public in media interviews, saying she wants justice and for her alleged attacker to go to jail.
Nafissatou Diallo agreed to interviews with Newsweek magazine and ABC television more than two months after the incident in New York, and weeks after prosecutors said they had doubts about her credibility.
Charges are still pending against Strauss-Kahn, but he has been freed from house arrest.
The 32-year-old Diallo told Newsweek that the former IMF leader grabbed and attacked her like a "crazy man," forcing her to perform oral sex. Strauss-Kahn has repeatedly denied the charges.
In a televised interview with ABC News, Diallo said she did not know who Strauss-Kahn was before the attack. She says that once she found out she thought she would be killed.
Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn say the interviews are an attempt to sway public opinion and to extract money.
The interviews come just weeks after New York prosecutors in the case raised doubts about the victim's credibility, saying she lied on her asylum application and gave inconsistent accounts of what she did following the alleged attack.
Strauss-Kahn, a veteran French politician, was arrested in May on charges he attacked the maid, who came to clean his suite at a luxury New York City hotel. The arrest prompted his resignation from the IMF.
Before his arrest, Strauss-Kahn was considered a top contender to run as the Socialist Party candidate against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the country's 2012 presidential election. Former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was recently chosen to succeed him at the IMF.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
