In a civil lawsuit against a US author, former US President Donald Trump described her allegations of rape as "ridiculous" and "made up". This emerged from a videotaped statement by Trump last October, which the defense of the 79-year-old US author E. Jean Carroll now played in court, as US media reported.

Trump himself has not appeared in person so far, so his statements on the video are reported to have all the more weight. Carroll accuses him of raping her in a New York upscale department store in the mid-1990s.

The real estate agent, who was not yet active as a politician at the time, rejects the allegations. His lawyer also declared in court that he would not invite any witnesses who could exonerate Trump, as reported by NBC News and others. NBC News quoted his attorney Joe Tacopina as saying that the reason is that an expert who was originally intended to be the only witness alongside Trump himself could not testify for health reasons. Further excerpts from Trump's statements on video should be played to the jury on Thursday, the broadcaster further reported.

At the beginning of the week, the responsible judge Lewis Kaplan had refused to break off the proceedings. According to US media reports, Trump's lawyers then asked for the process to be ended without result because the court had repeatedly made "unfair and harmful decisions" in the process. The criminal allegations are statute-barred, but under civil law Carroll was free to file a lawsuit.

The 76-year-old is being investigated for a number of possible crimes. He himself describes the actions of the law enforcement authorities against him as politically motivated: Trump wants to run again as a Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election.