- 40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn 'attacks'
- Eight dead as heavy rain thrashes Brazil after long drought
- Jewish school in Canada hit by gunfire for second time
- Morocco crush Central African Republic, Guirassy scores hat-trick
- Dupont scores quickfire hat-trick on Toulouse Top 14 return
- Ronaldo scores in Portugal's Nations League win as Spain sink Denmark
- Interim boss Carsley has not applied for England job
- Mets hurler Senga ready to take on Dodgers in game one of NL Championship Series
- Ronaldo on target again as Portugal defeat Poland in Nations League
- Guardians rip Tigers 7-3 to advance in MLB playoffs
- AFP, BBC win top French war reporting awards
- Carsley goes back to basics as humbled England face Finland
- Alex Salmond: the man who took Scotland to the brink of independence
- Scotland's former leader Alex Salmond dies aged 69: party
- UN warns of catastrophe as Israel fights a two-front war
- Croatia extend Scotland's losing streak
- South Africa, New Zealand boost T20 World Cup semi-final hopes
- 'Very challenging': Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain
- Farrell begins to feel at home as Racing 92 beat Toulon
- South Africa boost T20 World Cup semi-final hopes with Bangladesh win
- Samson ton powers India to T20 series sweep after record total
- Djokovic to face Sinner in Shanghai final with 100th title in sight
- UN peacekeepers to remain in Lebanon: spokesman
- Pro-Conquest film fuels debate in Mexico over colonial legacy
- Samson ton powers India to record 297-6 in Bangladesh T20
- New Zealand enjoy perfect start to America's Cup defence over Britain
- Pogacar emulates icon Coppi with fourth straight Il Lombardia triumph
- UN warns against 'catastrophic' regional conflict
- New Zealand crush Ineos Britannia in America's Cup opener
- Djokovic to face Sinner in blockbuster Shanghai Masters final
- With medical report Harris seeks to play health card against Trump
- Sri Lanka seeks to match success in W.Indies T20s
- Sinner reaches Shanghai final, will end year number one
- China-EU EV tariff talks in Brussels end with 'major differences': Beijing
- Sabalenka downs Gauff in three sets to reach Wuhan final
- Israel warns south Lebanon residents to 'not return'
- Sinner tames Machac to reach Shanghai Masters final
- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- Hezbollah fires at Israel as wars rage on Yom Kippur
- Analysts warn more detail needed on new China economic measures
- China tees up fresh spending to boost ailing economy
- China says will issue special bonds to boost ailing economy
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Dodgers drop Padres 2-0 to advance in MLB playoffs
- Alexei Navalny wrote he knew he would die in prison in new memoir
- Last-minute legal ruling allows betting on US election
- Despite hurricanes, Floridians refuse to leave 'paradise'
- Israel observes Yom Kippur amid firestorm over Lebanon strikes
French court to rule in Polanski defamation trial
A French court will rule Tuesday on whether French-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski is guilty of defaming British actor Charlotte Lewis after she accused him of raping her when she was a teenager.
Lewis told a Paris criminal court in March that she became the victim of a "smear campaign" that "nearly destroyed" her life after she spoke up about abuse that took place in the 1980s.
"He raped me," the 56-year-old actor told the court, explaining it had taken her time to put a name on the incident that occurred in Paris when she was 16.
The 90-year-old filmmaker, whose titles include the Oscar-winning "Rosemary's Baby", "Chinatown" and "The Pianist", did not attend the trial.
Polanski is wanted in the United States over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977 and faces several other accusations of sexual assault dating back decades and past the statute of limitations -- all claims he has rejected. He fled to Europe in 1978.
Lewis in 2010 accused Polanski of abusing her "in the worst possible way" as a 16-year-old in 1983 in Paris after she travelled there for a casting session. She appeared in his 1986 film "Pirates".
The France-born filmmaker retorted that it was a "heinous lie" in a 2019 conversation with Paris Match magazine.
According to Paris Match, he pulled out a copy of a 1999 article in now-defunct British tabloid newspaper News of the World, and quoted Lewis as saying in it: "I wanted to be his lover."
Lewis has said the quotes attributed to her in that interview were not accurate.
She filed a complaint for defamation, and the film director was automatically charged under French law.
The Paris court will not decide if there was a rape, but whether Polanski defamed Lewis in the Paris Match interview. The verdict is expected in the early afternoon.
Stuart White, who wrote the 1999 News of the World article to which Polanski referred, was also present in court.
"The interview I gave to Stuart White was not the interview that was in the newspaper," Lewis said, adding she discovered the article only years later.
White said he interviewed Lewis twice after the paper paid 30,000 pounds ($38,000 at today's rates) for exclusive rights.
He insisted she had agreed to a "vice girl" angle to the 1999 story, but said he could not remember if she had asked to approve the text before it was published.
In 2010, Lewis said she decided to speak out to counter suggestions from Polanski's legal team that the 1977 rape case was an isolated incident.
Switzerland, France and Poland have refused to extradite Polanski to the United States.
Between 2017 and 2019, four other women came forward with claims that Polanski also abused them in the 1970s, three of them as minors. He has denied all the allegations.
L.Durand--AMWN