London (AFP)
British justice authorized the American actor Johnny Depp on Thursday to sue the British tabloid The Sun, who had portrayed him as a violent husband, paving the way for the opening of a trial next Tuesday.
The 57-year-old "Pirate of the Caribbean" star criticizes the British newspaper and its owner "News Group Newspapers" (NGN) for presenting as a proven fact in an article published in April 2018, which it had struck the one who was then his wife, the American actress Amber Heard.
The couple divorced with a crash in early 2017, just over a year after their marriage. The 34-year-old actress then spoke of "years" of "physical and psychological" violence, which Johnny Depp denies.
The trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday in the High Court of London, with witnesses the actor and his ex-companions Winona Ryder and the French Vanessa Paradis, who supported him. Originally scheduled for mid-March, it has been postponed due to the pandemic and is expected to last several weeks.
Until the last moment, the lawyers of NGN tried to obtain the rejection of the defamation complaint by the justice, arguing in particular that Johnny Depp had breached a court order instructing him to communicate to them a series of SMS in which he allegedly asked his assistant for drugs.
These messages were sent in late February-early March 2015 by the Hollywood star when she was staying in Australia for a shoot, shortly before an alleged incident that Amber Heard described as "a three-day ordeal of physical assault".
Johnny Depp spoke of "happy pills" and a "white stuff", references to MDMA pills and cocaine, according to the defense of NGN.
After finding on Monday that the order to disclose the messages had not been followed, Judge Andrew Nicol released Johnny Depp from sanctions Thursday, allowing the trial to proceed.
The judge, however, rejected on Thursday Johnny Depp's request that "all communications" be published between Amber Heard and two men he suspects of having had connections with his ex-wife. According to the actor, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk (appearing in the contacts as "Rocketman") and the other is the actor James Franco.
"Even if he was not loyal to him, it would not be relevant to the central question" of whether he was violent, said the judge.
© 2020 AFP