Director Haggis released in rape case

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 4 - Canadian two-time Oscar winning director and screenwriter Paul haggis was released Monday after being detained for 16 days on charges of raping a 28-year-old British woman in a B&B at Ostuni in Puglia for three days in mid-June.
    A judge said his alleged victim's account of the case "not only confirmed the absence of coercive violent conduct on the part of the accused but revealed a complex affair that negates the original judgement contained in the warrant," namely that Haggis was unable to "resist his sexual instincts".
    Haggis, 69, who denies inflicting the June 12-15 alleged ordeal on the woman, won his Academy awards as producer and screenwriter of the 2004 film Crash, which he also directed.
    He also wrote the Oscar winning Clint Eastwood vehicle Million Dollar Baby (2004).
    Haggis had been under house arrest since June 19. (ANSA).