Strauss-Kahn maid's interviews fuel legal fires

US: The surprise emergence from hiding of the maid who accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape has raised the stakes again in the torrid case a week ahead of the next court hearing.

Strauss-Kahn has been freed from house arrest and New York prosecutors suggest their case is on the point of collapse because of problems with certain aspects of the maid's credibility.

So the sudden appearance of Nafissatou Diallo on ABC television and in a lengthy interview with Newsweek gives the 32-year-old Guinean immigrant a shot at wrestling momentum back in her favor.

The interviews, breaking 10 weeks of silence from the woman who says Strauss-Kahn forced her into oral sex in his luxury hotel room, brought little new in the way of allegations.

However, they put a human, at times tearful face on Diallo whose media star has fallen so far that the New York Post, a powerful tabloid, has even painted her as a prostitute.

The media offensive in the run-up to Strauss-Kahn's August 1 hearing in New York state court is partly aimed at pressuring the office of District Attorney Cyrus Vance not to give up the prosecution, legal expert Brenda Smith said.

"The timing of this is really to increase the chances that the prosecution will move forward, that there is outrage," Smith, a professor at American University Washington College of Law and an expert on sexual violence, said.

"Prosecutors are very sensitive to what the public thinks. I suspect they're going to be looking at the tea leaves."

But she said Diallo's attempt to play the public opinion battle is a "high risk strategy" that also exposes her even more than she already is to being shredded under cross-examination as a gold digger who exaggerated and changed her story. AFP