Serious sexual violence and assault. Canadian director Paul Haggis, 69, who was arrested by the police on the orders of prosecutors Antonio Negro and Livia Orlando, will have to answer for this allegation. After arriving in Ostuni in Puglia to attend “Then FeSt”, Haggis would have forced a 30-year-old foreign woman to have sex with him for two days in a hotel in the Brindisi area, starting Sunday June 12 . Then he would have left it outside Papola Casale Airport at dawn last Wednesday. At the airport, the 30-year-old was noticed by Puglia Airport staff and the border police in visible confusion. Who gave her the first attention? He then accompanied her to the Perrino Hospital in Brindisi, where the pink code was activated for her. The woman is said to have suffered “repeated, non-consenting sexual assault,” according to prosecutors.
prosecution and defense
According to the note released by the prosecutor, “after one of the intercourses, the foreign woman reported that she was forced to see a doctor” and that the episodes of “non-consenting intercourse” lasted for several days. In the arrest warrant, the Apulian prosecutors are demanding an incident of evidence for the victim’s statements. The Corriere della Sera writes that last Wednesday Haggis accompanied the woman in front of the Papola Casale airport in Brindisi and left her there “at dawn despite the precarious physical and psychological conditions”. She is also said to have left a love letter in the room, based on a first reconstruction quoted by the newspaper, for which the investigation is ongoing.
Repubblica adds that the girl is of English nationality and works in cinema. The first medical examination says his condition is consistent with the story. The Brindisi mobile team also found other feedback. These are the images from the airport security cameras showing that it was Haggis who accompanied her to the airport. “Inquire as soon as possible, I am completely innocent,” the director said through his lawyer, Michele Laforgia. Meanwhile, his family joined him in Puglia. Haggis should have attended the first edition of the Ostuni Film Festival, also with the task of interviewing well-known Hollywood faces such as Edward Norton, Matt Dillon, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Stone. But event organizers said after the arrest that they had “promptly removed any participation by the director from the event.” What remains confirmed.
previous
In 2017, Haleigh Breest, an advertising agent, reported him in a civil lawsuit over alleged violence that took place in 2013, when she was 26. Haggis was later denounced by three other women for violence that would have recurred in the world of cinema in 1996, 2008 and 2015. The Breest case came up again last year when Haggis asked the judge to expedite the civil process.
He said he was on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay legal fees, which would total nearly $2 million. Costs that he could no longer bear due to the difficulties in finding engagements. The filmmaker has been at the center of controversy in recent years, primarily over his involvement with Scientology, of which he was a member for 35 years. And which he gave up in 2009 after the positions of the religious organization founded by Ron Hubbard against gay marriage.
