I am not a lawyer but as I understand it you are allowed to have an opinion (eg saying "I think Sam cheated on his test"), but you're not allowed to imply you h

I am not a lawyer but as I understand it you are allowed to have an opinion (eg saying "I think Sam cheated on his test"), but you're not allowed to imply you have inside knowledge or proof when you don't, eg saying "I saw Sam sneaking looks at his notes during the test", when in fact you didn't see anything. You can shorten the first statemebt to "Sam cheated on the test" and argue in court that it is just stating a personal belief that you are entitled to. You don't have to preface every statement with "I think" or "I believe", those can be implied when you make a statement. But if you said the second and included the detail of claiming to have seen it yourself, and later it comes out in court that you knowingly lied about having seen the alleged cheating and did not see anything, you can likely be held liable for defamation.