Accuser's lies jeopardize Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, experts say

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn left the townhouse he was renting in New York's Tribeca neighborhood, a day after a judge lifted his house arrest on attempted rape charges.

Police and security guards cleared reporters off the sidewalk in front of the house shortly before Strauss-Kahn emerged at 2:05 p.m. on Saturday.

It was unclear where Strauss-Kahn was headed, but he owns a home in Washington, D.C., where the IMF is headquartered.

On Friday prosecutors told a judge they had discovered serious problems with the credibility of the hotel maid who accused Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in May. The judge subsequently lifted his house arrest, allowing him to travel anywhere in the United States but not abroad.

Allies of disgraced former IMF chief cheered his surprise release in New York, hoping that rape charges against him would eventually be reduced or dismissed and that his political career could be reborn.

Strauss-Kahn was a leading Socialist Party contender for the French presidency when he was hauled off a Paris-bound plane at a New York airport in May and accused of sexually assaulting a Guinean-born housekeeper at a luxury Manhattan hotel. He was forced to resign from his perch at the top of the International Monetary Fund.

A spokesman for Strauss-Kahn's party called Friday's developments an "immense relief."

"I don't rule out that [Strauss-Kahn] could be a presidential candidate," said Socialist National Assembly member and Strauss-Kahn ally Jean-Marie Le Guen, speaking on France Info radio.

French television pushed aside regular programming to focus on the case, and French newspapers, which had already published Friday's print editions when the news broke in New York late Thursday, layered article after article on their websites.

Michele Sabban, a politician and Strauss-Kahn ally, said Friday on LCI television that if the charges against the former IMF head are dropped, the Socialist party should delay its primary, which has a July 13 filing deadline.

-- The Washington Post and The Associated Press