Justice: Roman Polanski will be tried for defamation

Europe 1 with AFP 6:42 p.m., September 14, 2022

A defamation lawsuit in Paris has been ordered against Roman Polanski following a complaint by actress Charlotte Lewis for remarks in which the filmmaker questioned the veracity of the sexual abuse of which she accuses him, AFP has learned Wednesday from a source familiar with the matter.

An order of August 30 returns to the Paris Criminal Court the 89-year-old director, never tried before in France in a file relating to these accusations of sexual abuse.

The date has not yet been set. 

In press law, referral to court is almost automatic in such a procedure and the merits of the charges are examined at the hearing.

Solicited, Roman Polanski's lawyers, My Hervé Temime and Delphine Meillet, did not wish to comment and "reserve their explanations for the court".

Facts that date back to the 80s

The second added that she “did not know if Mr. Polanski intended to appear” or would be represented at the hearing.

The publication director of Paris Match, who had published the interview in question, will also be judged in this case.

In a long interview published by the weekly in December 2019, Mr. Polanski declared in particular: "You see, the first quality of a good liar is an excellent memory. Charlotte Lewis is always mentioned in the list of my accusers without ever pointing out these contradictions".

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"It's almost time for the hearing. We are waiting for it with envy and serenity", welcomed Wednesday Me Benjamin Chouai, lawyer for the British actress with Me Fabrice Epstein.

He had filed a complaint with civil action in March 2020. Charlotte Lewis, born in 1967, had filmed in the film "Pirates" directed by Roman Polanski in 1986. In 2010, she had claimed in Los Angeles to have been "sexually abused" by the filmmaker, in her Paris apartment in the early 1980s, when she was 16 years old.

Roman Polanski evokes "contradictions" 

But Roman Polanski, targeted by other accusations of rape, evokes in his interview with

of 2019 "contradictions" with his remarks of 2010 and a "odious lie" on the part of Charlotte Lewis, mentioning an interview that she had granted in 1999 to the British tabloid News of the World.

The filmmaker underlined the following sentence attributed to Charlotte Lewis in 1999: "I knew that Roman had done something bad in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress (...). I probably wanted him more than he did. wanted to".

The actress, however, challenged the veracity of these past remarks in 2010.

"Many of the quotes attributed to me in the News of the World article are not accurate," she said.

In February 2020, Roman Polanski received the César for best director for "J'accuse".