The prosecutor’s workplace within the southern Italian metropolis of Brindisi has requested that Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis is positioned again beneath arrest after a choose final week dominated that he must be launched following prices of sexual assault.
Haggis’ lawyer Michele Laforgia on Tuesday confirmed to Selection that the prosecution and attorneys for the alleged sufferer have filed an attraction towards the choice made final week by choose Vilma Gilli, who after a particular proof pre-trial listening to throughout which the accused and accuser got here head to head, dominated that Haggis must be freed after spending 16 days beneath home arrest in a resort.
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The choose within the ruling had famous an “absence of constricting violent conduct” on Haggis’ half towards the alleged sufferer who, in accordance with Italian press stories, is a 28-year-old British lady.
The choose additionally underlined within the ruling that the girl’s choice to be with Haggis, who’s 69, in his lodgings was “spontaneous,” in accordance with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
After final week’s ruling, prosecutors didn’t instantly say if they might transfer to drop the investigation or pursue it additional. It’s now clear that they’re nonetheless decided to go to trial.
Laforgia in a textual content message on Tuesday instructed Selection that the following step will probably be a assessment and dialogue of the case in entrance of one other choose within the metropolis of Lecce, which is able to happen “a number of weeks” from now.
Haggis, who received two Oscars for “Crash” and can be identified for writing “Million Greenback Child,” was arrested on June 19 in Ostuni, within the southern area of Puglia on the heel of the Italian boot, on prices of sexual assault allegedly inflicted over the course of two days.
In line with an Italian police report, the alleged sufferer was subsequently taken by Haggis to the Papola Casale airport in Brindisi and left there on the first light, regardless of her precarious bodily and psychological situations.
In an interview on Tuesday with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Haggis reiterated his claims of innocence and his perception that Italian courts will “verify the reality,” he stated.
Requested by La Repubblica if he had made some errors, Haggis stated: “My first mistake was to permit somebody I didn’t know to come back go to. That was silly.”
“The second mistake,” Haggis added, “occurred on the final morning, when one thing occurred that I discovered notably disagreeable and I made a decision to abruptly finish this case. I took this lady to the airport a number of hours earlier than her flight.”
Requested if there might be a connection to the Church of Scientology, from which the director cut up acrimoniously in 2009 and subsequently criticized in a New Yorker piece and by showing within the documentaries “Going Clear: Scientology and the Jail of Perception” and “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” Haggis didn’t rule this out.
“I don’t have proof. However from what I’ve realized from Scientology, I do know that they’re able to something,” he instructed La Repubblica. “In case you communicate towards them, they are going to use any means to destroy your repute, your profession, and your loved ones,” he stated.
Laforgia didn’t reply to a Selection interview request with Haggis.
Haggis can be going through court docket proceedings within the U.S. the place he’s being sued by movie publicist Haleigh Breest, who alleges that Haggis raped her in January 2013. Breest initially filed swimsuit in December 2017, though proceedings have been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A trial date has now been set for Oct. 11 in Manhattan. Haggis says the encounter with Breest, which allegedly occurred after a premiere, was consensual.
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