French TV shows Strauss-Kahn surveillance videos

It was not immediately clear how France's BFM television acquired the minutes-long segments. The clips were the basis of recent news reports suggesting Strauss-Kahn might have been the target of a political plot but had not previously been publicly broadcast.

Strauss-Kahn was initially charged with attempted rape after a hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, alleged he attacked her and forced her to perform oral sex. New York prosecutors dropped the charges after they said they lost confidence in Diallo, who has filed a civil case.

In the clips, Strauss-Kahn — the former head of the International Monetary Fund — exits an elevator, pays his bill and gets in a cab. BFM said those images were filmed about 20 minutes after the alleged May 14 assault. Strauss-Kahn, wearing a dark coat and wheeling a suitcase, does not appear hurried or nervous.

A separate segment BFM said was filmed about 40 minutes after the alleged attack shows Diallo slumped against a wall in a corridor reserved for hotel staff. The images are heavily pixelated, and it's impossible to make out the expression on her face.

At one point, she appears to act out the attack, grabbing her own breast and pursuing a colleague, her arms outstretched.

Diallo's lawyers insisted the images strengthen her case against Strauss-Kahn.

"This video shows actions of a victim, not someone who's part of some plot to bring down a man that she had never seen before in her life," attorney Kenneth Thompson told reporters at a news conference, where the images were played.

None of the clips show either Strauss-Kahn or Diallo emerging from the suite in the Sofitel hotel where the attack allegedly took place because, BFM explained, there are no surveillance cameras on that floor.

The BFM clips broadcast do, however, include a brief sequence in which two Sofitel employees hug one another and do a joyful little dance as they confer in a dark basement corridor. Recent news reports pointed to the dance as evidence of an alleged political plot against Strauss-Kahn.