LOS ANGELES TIMES: Justice ministry says it won't extradite the film director because allegations of judicial misconduct have yet to be disproved and because prosecutors didn't immediately seek the fugitive's arrest.
In the end, the move by Swiss authorities to free Roman Polanski did not come down to whether he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.
Instead, the Swiss government's refusal Monday to extradite the director centered in part on a controversial 1977 backroom meeting that a Los Angeles judge held with the prosecutor and defense attorney on the case.
Polanski's lawyers say the judge made it clear at the meeting that he intended to send the director to prison for a 90-day psychiatric test as his full sentence behind bars. They say that Polanski completed his punishment when prison authorities released him after 42 days and that the filmmaker fled the country when the judge indicated he would send him back to prison.
The Swiss justice ministry cited the meeting in a statement explaining its decision, saying that a U.S. court's ruling that kept some records about the meeting secret created "persisting doubts concerning the presentation of the facts of the case."
"In these circumstances, it is not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty that Roman Polanski has already served the sentence he was condemned to at the time," the statement said.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said he was "genuinely surprised and disappointed" by the legal reasoning behind the decision.
He described the failure to return Polanski as a "disservice to justice."
Experts said the latest development in the long-running legal saga was a blow to Cooley's office. Continue reading and comment >>>
TIME: Fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski's onscreen dramas are rivaled only by his private ones. The latest plot twist came Sept. 26, when the director of Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist touched down at Zurich airport to find police waiting to arrest him in connection with charges of a 1977 sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl. Polanski, 76, was arriving in Switzerland to collect a lifetime-achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. Fast Facts: >>> Laura Fitzpatrick | Monday, September 28, 2009
TIME: Polanski's Arrest: Why the French Are Outraged – Although the cultural divide between Europe and the U.S. has narrowed over the years, the legal fate of director Roman Polanski shows there are still major differences. Polanski's arrest in Switzerland on Sept. 26 [2009] was greeted with satisfaction in the U.S., where authorities hope he will face sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Europeans, meanwhile, are shocked and dismayed that an internationally acclaimed artist could be jailed for such an old offense. >>> Bruce Crumley, Paris | Monday, September 28, 2009
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