NY judge set to decide on Strauss-Kahn

A New York judge is expected to rule Friday whether disgraced French politician and former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face a civil lawsuit filed by a hotel maid accusing him of sexual assault. "There should be a decision on Friday," the office of Judge Douglas McKeon in New York state court in the Bronx told AFP. Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn asked McKeon in March to throw out the suit brought by Nafissatou Diallo, arguing that the Frenchman was protected by diplomatic immunity as head of the International Monetary Fund. Diallo, who is seeking unspecified damages, says Strauss-Kahn forced her into oral sex in his luxury hotel room in Manhattan, where she had entered to clean. Strauss-Kahn says consensual sex took place. New York prosecutors dropped criminal charges against the former high-flying politician, saying that Diallo's story was undermined by lies and inconsistencies. Strauss-Kahn faces separate, sex-related charges in France, where until the scandal in New York last year he had been seen as a leading contender for the presidency. Opinion polls at the time had pointed to Strauss-Kahn beating incumbent right-winger President Nicolas Sarkozy as a socialist. After Strauss-Kahn's fall from grace, Francois Hollande won the Socialist Party's primary nomination and beat Sarkozy in the first round Sunday. The two will face off in a May 6 runoff.