Former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has asked a New York judge to dismiss a civil suit filed by a New York City hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault earlier this year.

Strauss-Kahn claims he was immune from the civil suit under international law when the case was filed in August. His lawyers say that even though Strauss-Khan had resigned from the IMF after his May arrest, his diplomatic immunity remained in place while he was under house arrest in New York.

The lawyers also claim the charges impeded the work of the IMF “at a time of worldwide financial crisis and instability.”

The initial sexual assault charges were eventually dismissed after prosecutors said they lost faith in the hotel worker's credibility. Strauss-Kahn, once considered a strong contender in the upcoming French presidential election, was allowed to return to France last month after the collapse of the criminal case.

In a recent French Television interview Strauss-Kahn called the encounter with the hotel maid a “moral failing,” but said it “did not involve violence,

constraint or aggression.''

In another sexual assault inquiry, Strauss-Kahn is scheduled to be brought face-to-face later this week with a French journalist who insists he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview.