New York:
A lawyer for the hotel maid, who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her, has criticised the former IMF chief for not disclosing what happened during the encounter.
"What was interesting is what he didn't say," Douglas Wigdor, who represents Guinean maid Nafissatou Diallo, told AFP by telephone yesterday.
"He didn't say anything about what actually happened." Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken into custody shortly after Diallo, an employee at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan, alleged that Strauss-Kahn had sexually assaulted her on May 14. The charges were dropped last month.
The French socialist politician and economist was interviewed on France's tf1 network news channel by a friend of his wife and said the encounter with Diallo had been a "moral failing." but he denied assaulting her.
Wigdor, however, slammed the interview and said his client would pursue civil action against Strauss-Kahn, who has since returned to France from the United States.
"I look forward to questioning him under oath in my office. We are going to pursue that case aggressively," the lawyer said.
"We are going to use all our resources to see that Miss Diallo's rights are vindicated and that Mr Strauss-Kahn is held accountable for his actions."
Strauss-Kahn said in the interview that he would not agree to a legal deal to cut short Diallo's civil action against him.
"What happened involved neither violence nor constraint: no criminal act," he said sternly when asked what had happened in suite 2806 shortly before his arrest on sex assault charges.
Diallo's French lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, branded the interview "a public relations exercise, without any spontaneity, neither in the questions nor the replies - scripted down to each gesture."