MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Strauss-Khan left NY to return France

DSK left his rented Manhattan home Saturday afternoon

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has left his New York home to return to France. Mr Strauss-Kahn, his wife Anne Sinclair and his daughter left their rented house Saturday afternoon and later arrived at New York's JFK airport

Mr Strauss-Kahn, once seen as a possible French presidential contender, has been in the US since being arrested in May on sex assault charges dropped last month.

The 62-year-old denies the allegations.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in the days after his arrest, had his passport returned last week.

Hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, who accused Mr Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in his hotel room, is pressing her claims in a civil lawsuit.

Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife were seen arriving at the Air France terminal before going through security, AP reports.

They did not say where they were going but French media report they are expected to board a flight to Paris.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested on a plane in New York in May and spent a week in jail followed by six weeks of house arrest after charges were filed against him.

The case was dropped late last month at the request of prosecutors who had concerns about Ms Diallo's credibility.

With DNA evidence indicating a sexual encounter did occur between the two in a suite at the Sofitel Hotel in May, Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers maintain it was consensual and prosecutors were unable to determine whether force had been used.

Mr Strauss-Kahn faces another sexual assault allegation when he returns to France after novelist Tristane Banon accused him of trying to rape her during an interview in 2002.

Ms Banon made the allegation after the Diallo case, saying that she feared no-one would have believed her beforehand.

The former IMF chief had been considered the Socialist Party's front-runner to take on French President Nicolas Sarkozy in presidential elections next year.