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CRIME

French police summon Gérard Depardieu over suspected sexual assault

French police summoned cinema legend Gérard Depardieu on Monday over suspected incidents of sexual assault with a view towards placing him in custody for questioning, a police source said.

French police summon Gérard Depardieu over suspected sexual assault
Actor Gérard Depardieu has long been a polarising figure in France due to repeated allegations of sexual assault. Photo: AFP

Police were to question the actor over two women’s allegations that he assaulted them – one on a film set in 2014 and the other on another shoot in 2021, the source said, confirming a report by the BFMTV television channel.

The first woman accuses him of having assaulted her when she was a member of the crew on the 2022 feature film “The Green Shutters”.

The set designer, who filed a formal complaint in February, told investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu grabbed her as she left the set in a private hotel in Paris, groping her and making obscene comments, before his bodyguards removed him.

The second woman has alleged he groped her “all over” and made “inappropriate” remarks while she was an assistant on the set of 2015 film “Le magician et le Siamois” (“The Magician and the Siamese”), she told regional newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.

Depardieu already faces a rape charge, as well as claims of assault by more than a dozen women – all of which he has strongly denied.

“Never ever have I abused a woman,” Depardieu wrote in Le Figaro newspaper in October.

Police in 2020 charged Depardieu with rape and sexual assault after actor Charlotte Arnould alleged he raped her in 2018 when she was 22.

Another sexual assault complaint filed last year by actor Hélène Darras, who said Depardieu groped and propositioned her during a 2007 film shoot, has been dropped for being past the statute of limitations.

Spanish journalist and author Ruth Baza said in December she had filed a criminal complaint in Spain against Depardieu, claiming he raped her in 1995 in Paris.

Despite the events having passed the statute of limitations, she said she decided to file her complaint hoping it would “help other people” to do the same.

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CRIME

Man jailed after dismembered body found under Paris bridge

A man has been indicted for aggravated murder and remanded in custody after a dismembered body reportedly stuffed into a suitcase was found under a bridge in Paris at the weekend, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Man jailed after dismembered body found under Paris bridge

The dismembered body was found on Saturday evening under the Pont d’Austerlitz by firefighters who had come to put out a rubbish fire. The suspect turned himself in the following morning.

The man, born in 1989, had reportedly said the victim was a disabled person for whom he was a carer and with whom he had had a dispute.

The suspect, who the Paris public prosecutor’s office said had incriminated himself and had been questioned in police custody, appeared before an investigating judge on Tuesday.

He was charged with voluntary manslaughter of a vulnerable person, punishable by life imprisonment, and causing bodily harm. He was then remanded in custody, said the public prosecutor.

The suspect’s lawyer, Emanuel de Dinechin, told AFP that “it is not yet possible to determine the exact circumstances of the crime at this stage.”

“It will be up to the investigators to shed light on the material and psychological elements that came into play when the crime was committed,” he said.

The dismembered body was reportedly found in a suitcase. The place where it was found is frequented by homeless people.

French daily Le Parisien said the pair met a few months ago, and the suspect began to look after a quadriplegic, who was in his 50s. At first, things went well, but an altercation between the two turned tragic, the newspaper said.

For nearly two months, the carer kept the corpse under the bed, Le Parisien said.

When the smell became unbearable, he cut up the body with a saw, stuffed the pieces into a suitcase and dropped it off at the foot of the Pont d’Austerlitz before setting it on fire.

According to the newspaper, the body of an “adult male” was missing “upper and lower limbs”.

“The body was complete, but in several pieces,” Le Parisien quoted a source close to the case as saying.

The suspect killed the disabled man with his bare hands and multiple injuries were found on the victim’s body, said Le Parisien.

Last year the dismembered body of a woman was found in the Buttes-Chaumont park in northeast Paris, a popular spot for picnicking families and joggers.

The woman’s husband admitted to killing her and was charged with spousal murder. The couple were married for 26 years and had three children.

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