Quantum of Solace writer and Oscar winner detained in Italy in sex assault case

Canadian-born Oscar winner and Quantum of Solace writer Paul Haggis has been detained in Italy after he was reportedly in a sex assault case in the south of the country.

The film director, who is in Italy for a film festival that begins on Tuesday, June 21 in Ostuni, a tourist town in Puglia, was arrested after prosecutors in the coastal town of Brindisi laid charges of sexual assault.

The news agency LaPresse and several others quoted prosecutors as saying that a “young foreign woman” was forced to have “non-consensual” sexual relations over two days.

Prosecutors Antonio Negro and Livia Orlando, who are conducting the investigation, said in the statement the woman was “forced to seek medical care” after a couple of days “of non-consensual sex.

The woman who laid the complaint said she was accompanied by the man” to Brindisi airport on Sunday and “left there at dawn despite (her) precarious physical and psychological conditions.”

According to LBC radio, Haggis’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The woman was according to prosecutors, helped by airport staff who found her in a “confused state”. After providing her with some treatment, she was taken to the police headquarters in the city. She was then taken to the hospital accompanied by local officers.

Police in Brindisi declined to comment on the reports, saying they do not comment on such allegations.

A director, producer and screenwriter, Haggis won an Oscar for the best original screenplay for Crash. He has many other credits to his name including being a joint writer on a Quantum of Solace as well as having created many of the Walker, Texas Ranger series.

The prosecutors have not revealed the nationality or age of the woman that the Quantum of Solace writer Paul Haggis is accused of having assaulted sexually.

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