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09-29-2009, 10:12 AM
Polanski Seeks Release From Swiss Jail
By ALAN COWELL and MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: September 29, 2009
PARIS — Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning movie director jailed in Switzerland as a fugitive from American justice, filed an application Tuesday with a Swiss court seeking his release, news reports said.
The United States has been seeking his extradition for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, but the sudden move by Swiss authorities to arrest Mr. Polanski when he arrived in Zurich to collect a movie-making award on Saturday has roused diplomats, offended supporters of the filmmaker and left more than a few onlookers asking themselves the same question: Why now?
In a statement on Tuesday, the Swiss Criminal Court said it will decide “in the next few weeks” on its response to the director’s application to be set free. Whatever the decision, it can still be appealed to a higher court, the Swiss Justice Ministry said over the weekend.
Mr. Polanski’s lawyer in Paris, Hervé Temime, said Mr. Polanski was seeking to be released even if conditions were attached to his liberty.
Mr. Polanski, who has joint French and Polish citizenship, has made countless visits to Switzerland in his more than three decades as a fugitive and he maintains homes there and in France.
But American law enforcement officials here have said his arrest was a simple matter of opportunity.
“He just showed up at a time and a place where we knew he would be available,” Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Stephen L. Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said Monday.
But supporters of Mr. Polanski have said that this has been true many times since he fled the United States in 1978 to escape sentencing in a sex-crimes case involving a 13-year-old girl.
“He has traveled openly and transparently,” said Jeff Berg, the chairman of International Creative Management and Mr. Polanski’s agent. Mr. Polanski owns a home in Switzerland and frequently visits there.
Piqued by claims that it had not pursued Mr. Polanski in the past, the district attorney’s office circulated a list of actions and queries by which it had monitored his travels in at least 10 countries, including what appeared to be a near miss, when officials relayed a request for information from Israel about a visit in 2007. “Polanski had left Israel and was not arrested,” by the time the information arrived, said the advisory.
Mr. Polanski’s lawyers, in an appellate court filing in August, said the district attorney’s office had avoided attempts at extradition, which might have resulted in hearings at which judicial misconduct would have been raised as an issue.
A July ruling by that appellate court has opened the door to a potentially volatile round of arguments as early as next month over whether lawyers for Mr. Polanski should be permitted, even without the director’s presence in the courtroom, to show that the case against him was tainted.
The question rises, in part, out of a documentary about the case released last year in which a deputy district attorney described how he had coached the now-deceased judge about Mr. Polanski’s sentencing.
For three decades, Los Angeles prosecutors have argued that Mr. Polanski forfeited his rights by fleeing and has no standing to challenge his treatment unless he returns. Mr. Polanski’s representatives have said the need to remedy corrupt justice in Los Angeles supersedes any requirement that Mr. Polanski return.
Precisely how Mr. Polanski came to be picked up so shortly before the crucial hearing remains unclear. Ms. Gibbons said the appellate court ruling had nothing to do with the extradition request, which, she said, was handled by David Walgren, a deputy district attorney assigned to Mr. Polanski’s case.
Douglas Dalton and Chad Hummel, who have represented Mr. Polanski in his appeal, declined to discuss the request for extradition, for which he is to have a new legal team based in Europe and perhaps Washington.
While Mr. Polanski has lived a fairly open life, he has avoided visits to Britain, where extradition would be easier. When in Germany directing his latest film, “The Ghost,” Mr. Polanski occasionally avoided the set, directing through a remote communications setup and leading some members of the cast and crew to believe that he was trying to make apprehension more difficult, according to a person briefed on the shoot and speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Temime, Mr. Polanski’s lawyer, told France Info radio that “there is no reason, either in law or in fact, nor on the terrain of the most elementary justice, to keep Roman Polanski in prison for even one day.” Mr. Temime, citing “the extravagant circumstances” of Mr. Polanski’s arrest as he arrived late Saturday at Zurich’s airport on the way to being honored at a local film festival, asked for the director’s release and said he intended to fight extradition.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, described Mr. Polanski’s arrest as “a bit sinister” and said he and the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, were jointly writing a letter expressing concern to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Nearly 100 entertainment industry professionals, including the movie directors Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai and Wim Wenders, urged in a petition that Mr. Polanski be released, saying: “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision.”
Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar as screenwriter of “The Pianist,” which Mr. Polanski directed, said: “It’s really disgraceful. Both the Americans and the Swiss have miscalculated.”
Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.
“Sometimes, the American justice system shows an excess of formalism,” Mr. Lang said, “like an infernal machine that advances inexorably and blindly.”
Mr. Polanski, 76, was taken into custody on a provisional arrest warrant after Swiss authorities received an official request from the United States Justice Department, which was acting on a request from the Los Angeles district attorney. He had originally been charged with six counts, including rape and sodomy, involving an incident with a 13-year-old girl. He eventually pleaded guilty to just one count, having sex with a minor, spent 42 days in state prison under psychiatric evaluation, and fled on the eve of his sentencing after he became convinced that the judge was going to backtrack on a plan to let him off without further jail time.
The victim in the case, Samantha Geimer, has long publicly identified herself and expressed forgiveness of Mr. Polanski.
Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Michael Cieply from Los Angeles. David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris.
Fuck him, it's about time.
JC
By ALAN COWELL and MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: September 29, 2009
PARIS — Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning movie director jailed in Switzerland as a fugitive from American justice, filed an application Tuesday with a Swiss court seeking his release, news reports said.
The United States has been seeking his extradition for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, but the sudden move by Swiss authorities to arrest Mr. Polanski when he arrived in Zurich to collect a movie-making award on Saturday has roused diplomats, offended supporters of the filmmaker and left more than a few onlookers asking themselves the same question: Why now?
In a statement on Tuesday, the Swiss Criminal Court said it will decide “in the next few weeks” on its response to the director’s application to be set free. Whatever the decision, it can still be appealed to a higher court, the Swiss Justice Ministry said over the weekend.
Mr. Polanski’s lawyer in Paris, Hervé Temime, said Mr. Polanski was seeking to be released even if conditions were attached to his liberty.
Mr. Polanski, who has joint French and Polish citizenship, has made countless visits to Switzerland in his more than three decades as a fugitive and he maintains homes there and in France.
But American law enforcement officials here have said his arrest was a simple matter of opportunity.
“He just showed up at a time and a place where we knew he would be available,” Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Stephen L. Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said Monday.
But supporters of Mr. Polanski have said that this has been true many times since he fled the United States in 1978 to escape sentencing in a sex-crimes case involving a 13-year-old girl.
“He has traveled openly and transparently,” said Jeff Berg, the chairman of International Creative Management and Mr. Polanski’s agent. Mr. Polanski owns a home in Switzerland and frequently visits there.
Piqued by claims that it had not pursued Mr. Polanski in the past, the district attorney’s office circulated a list of actions and queries by which it had monitored his travels in at least 10 countries, including what appeared to be a near miss, when officials relayed a request for information from Israel about a visit in 2007. “Polanski had left Israel and was not arrested,” by the time the information arrived, said the advisory.
Mr. Polanski’s lawyers, in an appellate court filing in August, said the district attorney’s office had avoided attempts at extradition, which might have resulted in hearings at which judicial misconduct would have been raised as an issue.
A July ruling by that appellate court has opened the door to a potentially volatile round of arguments as early as next month over whether lawyers for Mr. Polanski should be permitted, even without the director’s presence in the courtroom, to show that the case against him was tainted.
The question rises, in part, out of a documentary about the case released last year in which a deputy district attorney described how he had coached the now-deceased judge about Mr. Polanski’s sentencing.
For three decades, Los Angeles prosecutors have argued that Mr. Polanski forfeited his rights by fleeing and has no standing to challenge his treatment unless he returns. Mr. Polanski’s representatives have said the need to remedy corrupt justice in Los Angeles supersedes any requirement that Mr. Polanski return.
Precisely how Mr. Polanski came to be picked up so shortly before the crucial hearing remains unclear. Ms. Gibbons said the appellate court ruling had nothing to do with the extradition request, which, she said, was handled by David Walgren, a deputy district attorney assigned to Mr. Polanski’s case.
Douglas Dalton and Chad Hummel, who have represented Mr. Polanski in his appeal, declined to discuss the request for extradition, for which he is to have a new legal team based in Europe and perhaps Washington.
While Mr. Polanski has lived a fairly open life, he has avoided visits to Britain, where extradition would be easier. When in Germany directing his latest film, “The Ghost,” Mr. Polanski occasionally avoided the set, directing through a remote communications setup and leading some members of the cast and crew to believe that he was trying to make apprehension more difficult, according to a person briefed on the shoot and speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Temime, Mr. Polanski’s lawyer, told France Info radio that “there is no reason, either in law or in fact, nor on the terrain of the most elementary justice, to keep Roman Polanski in prison for even one day.” Mr. Temime, citing “the extravagant circumstances” of Mr. Polanski’s arrest as he arrived late Saturday at Zurich’s airport on the way to being honored at a local film festival, asked for the director’s release and said he intended to fight extradition.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, described Mr. Polanski’s arrest as “a bit sinister” and said he and the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, were jointly writing a letter expressing concern to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Nearly 100 entertainment industry professionals, including the movie directors Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai and Wim Wenders, urged in a petition that Mr. Polanski be released, saying: “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision.”
Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar as screenwriter of “The Pianist,” which Mr. Polanski directed, said: “It’s really disgraceful. Both the Americans and the Swiss have miscalculated.”
Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.
“Sometimes, the American justice system shows an excess of formalism,” Mr. Lang said, “like an infernal machine that advances inexorably and blindly.”
Mr. Polanski, 76, was taken into custody on a provisional arrest warrant after Swiss authorities received an official request from the United States Justice Department, which was acting on a request from the Los Angeles district attorney. He had originally been charged with six counts, including rape and sodomy, involving an incident with a 13-year-old girl. He eventually pleaded guilty to just one count, having sex with a minor, spent 42 days in state prison under psychiatric evaluation, and fled on the eve of his sentencing after he became convinced that the judge was going to backtrack on a plan to let him off without further jail time.
The victim in the case, Samantha Geimer, has long publicly identified herself and expressed forgiveness of Mr. Polanski.
Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Michael Cieply from Los Angeles. David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris.
Fuck him, it's about time.
JC