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Polanski refused bail due to ‘high risk of flight’
Roman Polanski has been refused release from a Swiss prison where he is awaiting extradition to the United States
The Swiss Justice Ministry has refused Roman Polanski's request to be bailed from prison pending his extradition to the United States because he is considered a flight risk.
Polanski, who admitted to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, fled California for France in 1978 because he feared a judge would not honour a plea bargain. Despite the fact the film director owns a home in Switzerland, it was feared he might try the same thing again.
Folco Galli, a spokesman for the ministry, said: "We continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight."
But Polanski has not lost his only chance of freedom. The 76-year-old's lawyers last week filed a separate case to the Swiss Federal Criminal Court requesting the extradition be dropped and a decision is expected in the "next weeks". Even if this case is unsuccessful, Polanski can appeal to the Federal Tribunal, Switzerland's highest court.
Galli confirmed that the US is yet to file its formal extradition request, although he didn't expect them to need the full 60-day period allowed to submit the paperwork.
Meanwhile, court papers released in Los Angeles show Polanski and the woman he raped when she was 13, Samantha Geimer, reached a $500,000 settlement in October 1993, five years after she had sued him for sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction.
However, by 1996 Polanski still hadn't paid the money and it is not known whether he has since. The fact that Geimer has opposed Polanski's extradition, and has said she would like the charges against him to be dropped, suggests that he did.
Another person from Polanski's past who has argued in the past week that he should not be extradited is the sister of his former wife Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by a follower of Charles Manson.
Debra Tate says her former brother-in-law cannot expect a fair trial in America and that what he did to 13-year-old Geimer was not rape.
"There's rape and then there's rape," Debra Tate said. "It was determined that Roman did not forcibly have sex with this woman. It was a consensual matter." ·
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Polansky's latest film in production, "the Ghost", is about a thinly disguised Tony Blair character fleeing to USA for political asylum to escape an international war-crimes warrant for his arrest.
If this arrest results in thst project being aborted, many people in high places will be pleased, not least the supposed European president elect.
The USA will hunt you down to the ends of the earth for having sex with a 13 yr old 30 yrs ago, but give safe haven to key instigators of the war crime if the 21st century.
Maybe it was not a 'consensual matter' since she was so young, but we cannot judge sex in the seventies under the prurient society values of today. What was she doing with him alone in a house in the first place? And the house belonged to Jack Nicholson for God's sake!!! So, how did her mother allow this situation to happen? Only in the seventies! But now, even if the victim does not want Polanski to be extradited to the US, and it seems that he reached a settlement with her long ago, in America Polanski would be crucified as a monster as well.
It was not a 'consensual matter' because under US law, a thirteen year-old child cannot give 'consent' to sexual activity.
Roman Polanski already accepted that he had broken the law when he entered into a plea bargain and so there is NO question about his guilt, he has already admitted it!