Legal team claim footage of rapper physically assaulting ex-girlfriend was passed on by Department for Homeland Security, which prosecutors deny

Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs have alleged that the US government is behind the leak of a video which showed Combs physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, AKA Cassie.

A memo filed by Combs’s legal team on Wednesday complains of “a series of unlawful government leaks, which have led to damaging, highly prejudicial pre-trial publicity that can only taint the jury pool and deprive Mr Combs of his right to a fair trial”.