DSK maid lawyers seek to contact airline staff

Nafissatou Diallo (C), the Manhattan maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her, is escorted from Manhattan Criminal Court after meeting with her lawyers and the New York District Attorney in New York July 27, 2011.

PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for the New York hotel maid who says Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her are looking to talk to Air France staff about the once globetrotting chief of the International Monetary Fund.

Hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo's lawyers are fighting to keep a criminal case against Strauss-Kahn going after New York prosecutors said doubts had arisen over her credibility.

"I received an anonymous letter from someone who apparently works at Air France about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and we're now looking to talk to Air France employees," Diallo lawyer Kenneth Thompson told Reuters by email.

An Air France spokeswoman would not confirm whether the company had been contacted by Diallo's legal team or say whether the airline was aware of any complaints by flight attendants.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, spent much of his life on planes in his job as IMF head and travelled regularly on Air France (AIRF.PA).

Police escorted him off an Air France plane in New York minutes before takeoff on May 14 before he was charged with attempting to rape Diallo.

He has denied any wrongdoing in that case, which wrecked his IMF career overnight and destroyed his chances of running in France's 2012 presidential election, where he had been seen as a frontrunner.

Diallo, 32, has embarked on a media campaign experts say is designed to either pressure prosecutors to press on with their case or raise the stakes before a possible civil settlement.

The next court hearing for the case is set for August 23. (Reporting by Alexandria Sage in Paris and Leigh Jones in New York; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Brian Love)