The award-winning Canadian screenwriter and director Oscar, Paul Haggis, is under house arrest in southern Italy on charges of sexual assault and aggravated bodily harm, which Haggis denies, his lawyers said on Monday.
“Mr Paul Haggis was detained on Sunday in an emergency measure issued by the Brindisi prosecutors and is now under house arrest in Ostuni. He will be questioned until Thursday by a judge who will have to decide whether or not to confirm the arrest,” said Italian lawyer Michele Laforgia.
Haggis was accused of forcing a young non-Italian girl to have sex against her will for two days in Ostuni, Italy, public prosecutors in Brindisi said in a statement on Sunday.
“According to Italian law, I cannot discuss the evidence. That said, I am confident that all allegations against Mr. Haggis will be rejected,” Haggis’ personal attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement.
According to both, Haggis was pleading not guilty and would cooperate with authorities.
“A young foreign woman was forced to seek medical attention” after sexual intercourse, prosecutors said in the statement.
They claimed that on Sunday, after the non-consensual relations, the man accompanied the woman to Brindisi airport, where she was dropped off despite her “precarious physical and psychological conditions”.
Haggis, 69, wrote “Million Dollar Baby” and co-wrote and directed “Crash,” both for which he won an Oscar.
In 2018, he denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by four women, including two who accused him of rape.
Source: CNN Brasil
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