Canadian movie director Paul Haggis was detained on Sunday for investigation of allegations that he sexually assaulted a girl in southern Italy, Italian information media mentioned, quoting native prosecutors.
The London, Ont., born, Oscar-winning Haggis, 69, has been in Italy for a movie competition that begins on Tuesday in Ostuni, a vacationer city in Puglia, the area that kinds the “heel” of the Italian peninsula.
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The information company LaPresse and several other different Italian media carried a written assertion from prosecutors within the close by metropolis of Brindisi that they had been investigating allegations a “younger international lady” was compelled to have “non-consensual” sexual relations over two days.
Haggis’s lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, mentioned that he couldn’t talk about the proof beneath Italian regulation.
“I’m assured that every one allegations might be dismissed towards Mr. Haggis,” Chaudhry mentioned. “He’s completely harmless, and keen to completely cooperate with the authorities, so the reality comes out shortly.”
Prosecutors Antonio Negro and Livia Orlando, who’re conducting the investigation, mentioned within the assertion that the lady was “compelled to hunt medical care” following the sexual relations. After a few days “of non-consensual relations, the lady was accompanied by the person” to Brindisi airport on Sunday and “was left there at daybreak regardless of (her) precarious bodily and psychological circumstances.”
The Brindisi prosecutors’ workplace was closed on Sunday.
The prosecutors mentioned airport workers and police observed her “apparent confused state” and after lending preliminary remedy, took her to Brindisi’s police headquarters, the place officers accompanied her to a neighborhood hospital for examination.
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Police at headquarters’ operations room mentioned they weren’t approved to provide out details about the case, together with whether or not Haggis was being held on the police station or at a lodge or different lodging.
Haggis is a director, producer and screenwriter. He received an Oscar in 2006 for finest authentic screenplay for Crash.
Prosecutors had been additionally quoted as saying that the lady “formalized her criticism and cited circumstances which had been subsequently regarded into for affirmation by investigators.”
They didn’t cite her nationality or age.
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