Amidst mounting pressures, beleaguered International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominique Strauss-Khan resigned on Thursday but insists he was innocent of the sexual assault accusations hurled against him.

"It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the Executive Board my resignation from my post of Managing Director of the IMF," he said in a statement.

"I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me," the statement added.

Strauss-Kahn, one of the world's most powerful man and considered as a sure winner in the next French presidential elections, is jailed in New York and awaiting a grandy jurity decision whether there is sufficient evidence to indict him of the allegations that he sexually assaulted a 32-year-old chambermaid in Soffitel Hotel in New York last Saturday.