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S U B S C R I B E
Monday, 12 July, 2010
Polanski freed as Swiss deny extradition request
The house arrest of Roman Polanski has been lifted as Federal Councilor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf announced this afternoon that Switzerland will not extradite the 76-year-old filmmaker to the United States. Polanski has reportedly now left his chalet in Gstaad. WRS’s Alex Helmick talks to our reporter Jordan Davis, who’s in Bern with an update on the decision:
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AT A GLANCE
- In a statement released with today’s announcement, the Justice Ministry said it had denied the request because it is “not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty a fault in the U.S. extradition request.” In particular, U.S. authorities refused to provide details of the case records requested by Switzerland.
- Polanski was taken into custody on September 26 last year when he arrived in Zurich where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award at the film festival there. He was arrested on outstanding warrant in the U.S., where he has been avoiding sentencing on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
- Until today, he had been under house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad since December 4, out on 4.5 million franc bail.
Comments
Total comments: 3 | Add to the discussion.
Damn, if I ever start raping children, I think I’d like to flee to Switzerland. Vive Switzerland indeed.
Although not a good idea, people generalize. The Swiss nation has now descended to the lowest ranks of moral integrity because its justice minister, a mother of three children, has protected a man who admitted in court having drugged and sodomized a child, and who fled from justice after posting bail. I’m Swiss and ashamed.
Polanski has admitted to drugging and having sex with a child. In the US that is considered rape (as it should be). He is a convicted criminal, and should serve the time he must. The opinion of the victim is not relevant, and less so because the premise of the law which he violated is that what he did was a crime in part because the victim was not of an age to be allowed to depend on her own judgment. His is a debt to society.
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