MADRID.- The Spanish journalist and writer Ruth Baza announced today – December 19 – that she filed a complaint against the French actor Grard Depardieu for rape, for events that allegedly occurred in Paris in 1995.
The author, 51, explained to AFP that she had filed her complaint last Thursday – December 14 – with the Spanish police for a rape that occurred during an interview she conducted with the French actor for the magazine Cinemana on October 12, 1995 in Paris, thus confirming information reported by the Spanish newspaper The vanguard.
“It was an invasion without my absolute consent, at no time,” said Baza, who was 23 years old at the time, while the actor was 46. “I was absolutely paralyzed,” she added about the events that allegedly occurred at the premises of the former production company Roissy Films.
In Spain, the crime of sexual assault also includes rape, according to the penal code.
In her conversation with AFP, Baza referred to what happened as a sexual assault, but when asked if it had been a rape, she responded affirmatively. “That’s how the police called it,” she replied.
“Petrified”
Contacted by AFP, the police and the Prosecutor’s Office did not confirm whether this complaint had already been filed, which would be the third against the French actor for sexual violence since 2018.
“When we finished the interview, we both didn’t stand up and, I don’t know how, suddenly he hugged me again. He started kissing me all over my face. He kissed me on the lips and I couldn’t move,” Ruth Baza explained to AFP. .
“He touched my body and he touched my crotch and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t move, and he kissed me, he kissed me,” she said, stating that she was petrified and didn’t feel anything.
The journalist said she had completely forgotten what happened until she read the investigation published in April by the investigative outlet Mediapart in which 13 new testimonies against Depardieu came to light.
This article caused an internal click in her and brought to her mind small flashes of what happened, corroborated by personal notes from the time that she says she found.
Prescribed facts
At the legal level, this complaint has little chance of succeeding, since the facts would be prescribed a priori in France.
Despite everything, the journalist says she decided to report in the hope that she can help other people do the same.
Grard Depardieu has been accused since December 2020 of rape and sexual assault against actress Charlotte Arnould, who reported two rapes at the actor’s Parisian home in August 2018. Accusations that the actor refutes.
The broadcast at the beginning of December of a report by the France 2 television network in which he was seen making misginous comments once again put him under the microscope.
Likewise, actress Hélène Darras also reported him in September for a sexual assault suffered in 2007, alleged facts that were in principle prescribed, and which the actor also denies.
FUENTE: AFP
