Rapper Rhymes in assault charge

Rhymes was arrested following the Amsterjam Festival earlier this month

Rap star Busta Rhymes is scheduled to appear in court over charges that he allegedly attacked a man who spat on his car.

Rhymes - real name Trevor Smith - was arrested by New York police over the incident, which occurred on 12 August. He will appear in court on 24 October.

The alleged incident took place near Manhattan's Gramercy Park after Rhymes performed at Amsterjam music festival.

But the rapper's lawyer Scott Leemon said the charge only deserved a ticket.

"This is payback by the NYPD," he said, in an apparent reference to Rhymes' reluctance to talk to police after his bodyguard Israel Ramirez was shot dead earlier this year.

Mr Ramirez was killed in February outside a music studio in the New York district of Brooklyn. At the time, New York's police commissioner Raymond Kelly said that the silence of several potential witnesses was stalling the investigation.

He singled Rhymes out for criticism, saying: "If your employee's murdered in front of you, you think you might want to talk to the police."