Strauss-Kahn files US$ one million suit against New York maid

US: Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has filed a $1 million countersuit against the New York hotel maid at the center of last year's explosive sexual assault allegations, a report said Tuesday.

A year after the scandal broke, the former French Socialist party presidential hopeful accused the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, of "knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law-enforcement authorities," the New York Post said Tuesday citing court documents.

The countersuit lodged Monday at Bronx Supreme Court claims the maid's "malicious and wanton false allegation" undermined Strauss-Kahn's reputation and damaged "other professional opportunities," said the filing, without specifying political ambitions that were rocked by the scandal, the Post said.

Before the allegations brought down the International Monetary Fund chief in the wake of his arrest last year in New York, Strauss-Kahn, 62, was seen as a champion of France's Socialist Party and expected to beat vulnerable President Nicolas Sarkozy at the polls this year. AFP