Swiss refuse Polanski extradition until US court rules on sex case

Swiss authorities yesterday refused to extradite Roman Polanski until a US court rules definitively that the director must face further sentencing in person in a 32-year-old sex case.

The Swiss justice ministry said it would make “no sense” to remove him from house arrest at his Alpine chalet while he seeks to resolve his US case in absentia for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski’s lawyers say the film-maker served his full sentence in 1978 when he underwent a diagnostic study at a California prison for 42 days.

Los Angeles courts have disagreed and Polanski’s lawyers have promised to appeal.

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The Swiss justice ministry’s deputy director, Rudolf Wyss, said: “When the question is still open, why should he be extradited? As long as the question is still open, our decision depends on that.”

Mr Wyss spoke on the day Polanski’s latest film, The Ghost Writer, opened at the Berlin Film Festival. The director was not at the premiere, or a Press conference with the thriller’s stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, because he is under house arrest at his chalet in the Swiss resort of Gstaad. Polanski, 76, lost an attempt last month to be sentenced in Los Angeles without returning when a judge ruled that he must be present in court if he wanted to resolve the case. Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza referred to Polanski as a fugitive from justice.

Polanski was initially accused of raping the girl after plying her with champagne and sedatives during a 1977 modelling shoot.

He was indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molestation and sodomy, but he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. The Oscar-winning director of Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist fled the US on February 1, 1978, the day he was to be formally sentenced.

He has since lived in France, which does not extradite its citizens, but was arrested on September 26 as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival.