He had been warned by a "friend" that morning that a message he sent to Sinclair had been read at the offices of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, added sources quoted for an article to be published in the New York Review of Books.

Strauss-Kahn, then tipped to beat Sarkozy in France's 2012 presidential elections, was taken off the plane to Paris that afternoon following a complaint by hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo that he had attacked her.

The phone, which disappeared on the day of the arrest, "was never found", a Strauss-Kahn associate told AFP.

The politician apparently noticed the device was missing while having lunch with his daughter in New York before heading for the airport.

The New York Review of Books article has associates hinting that Strauss-Kahn may have been set up in order to discredit him ahead of the polls.

It describes camera footage showing an employee of the Sofitel hotel, where the sexual encounter was alleged to have taken place in Strauss-Kahn's room, high-fiving a colleague and appearing to perform a celebratory dance after listening to Diallo's testimony.

Edward Epstein, author of the article, told AFP: "I didn't say it was a political conspiracy but I would say that people wanted to find evidence of an indiscretion of his that could derail either his candidacy or even (his work

at) the IMF."

Epstein said surveillance video reveals that "no one was watching" Diallo after the alleged attack -- "there was no doctor, no nurse, the manager didn't come in and didn't speak to her."

"She was in the hands of two or three of the security people. There was another housekeeper sitting there with her, but other than that she was left completely alone, she was neglected," Epstein said.

Charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped after prosecutors said Diallo had lied about details of her allegations, although evidence showed that some sort of hurried sexual encounter did occur.

Strauss-Kahn resigned as IMF head as a result of the scandal which also left his domestic political career in tatters. Since returning home, he has faced new allegations of sexual misconduct in France.

"We cannot now exclude the likelihood that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the target of a deliberate effort to destroy him as a political force," one of the politician's lawyers, William Taylor, said in a statement.

But UMP secretary general Jean-Francois Cope dismissed the idea of a plot as "absolutely ridiculous", alleging it had been cooked up to dent Sarkozy's chances of winning the election.

"I would like to see the evidence if it exists," he told France's TF1 television.

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for the maid who has launched a civil suit against Strauss-Kahn in New York, said: "It is beyond preposterous and irresponsible to say that Ms Diallo is part of some governmental conspiracy to set up DSK."

Sources close to the case told AFP in July that the French presidency had been tipped off about Strauss-Kahn's pending arrest by Accor, the group that owns the Sofitel hotel, which has denied this.

The presidency declined to comment on Friday.

"A trap? It's possible. A plot? We'll see," Strauss-Kahn had told French television in September.