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THE UNITED STATES have asked Poland to extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski, who pleaded guilty in 1977 to raping a 13-year-old but left the country before sentencing, Polish prosecutors said today.
The move comes months after the US attempted to have the French-Polish filmmaker arrested for sex offences when he travelled to Warsaw for the opening of a Jewish museum in October.
Polish prosecutors questioned the 81-year-old maker of The Pianist and Chinatown but allowed him to walk free.
Request to extradite the director
The extradition request was sent on Monday and will be transferred over to the regional prosecutors handling the case, according to Mateusz Martyniuk, spokesman for the general prosecutor’s office.
“The first prosecutors will do is question Polanski,” he told AFP, while refusing to give the filmmaker’s location at the moment.
Polanski was accused of raping Samantha Geimer after a photo shoot in 1977 when he was 43 years old.
He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, avoiding a trial, but then fled the country fearing a hefty sentence.
US officials have pressed for his extradition regularly to no avail.
Polanski, who became a French citizen in 1976 after moving there from Poland, was arrested in Switzerland on an international arrest warrant in 2009. He was released after being held for months.
New hearing?
Polanski’s lawyers recently requested a new hearing to try and close the case on procedural grounds, but a Los Angeles judge refused to reopen the case last month.
Polanski’s lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz told AFP he was aware of the extradition request and refused to say whether his client was currently in Poland.
A Polish court will examine the extradition request. A rejection would mean the case is closed. But if the court approves the request, it will be up to the justice ministry to give the final go-ahead.
Martyniuk told AFP in October that Polanski’s extradition was still possible because “the statute of limitations does not apply to US requests”.
Geimer wrote a book about her encounter with Polanski in 2013, in which she said she was made to drink champagne and was given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson.
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Speaking of which, I see the NOC have paid Hickeys fees and he’s coming home but we still can’t comment!!
Nor can you comment on the GSOC/sexual assault complaint where no charges have been made yet. The charging is the normal point for cutting off comments.
Surprised the coppers didn’t catch these fellas given how many checkpoints they’ve been deploying in Clane lately
No Garda info on descriptions, characteristics, clothing, size or accents. These things would be helpful in any public appeal, or maybe they’re not really that bothered.
They don’t give full descriptions because these men would be seen on every street corner. I’m sure anyone who saw an armed robbery and a distinctive Skoda will be able to give their own descriptions. This way Gardai will know if the witness is legit!
Gerry, being seen in every street corner, means too much follow up work?. Surely these lads were lurking around at some stage before the robbery, maybe they called into other shops in the area looking for easy targets. They wouldn’t have brought the car into some shops and afterwards are certainly not going to be hanging on to the car. First thing I would do is provide a description to other shopkeepers for their protection and also for them to check their videos for these guys scoping thing out. Back in the days of actual policing, descriptions were given out. We are now in the days of just incident recording.
So you think Gardai should tell the public and potential witnesses every detail of this crime. That would be a barristers dream when they get witnesses in the witness box and be able to say that the Gardai led the witnesses into making statements. Gardai hold back certain information for a reason. You should wander down to the local district court some day. There are thousands of people prosecuted on a daily basis by Gardai for Criminal offences so much so that the courts struggle to keep up and it takes months and years to get through the courts. Even take a look at the news. Today alone I saw 4 articles about criminals being locked up for serious and guess what all of these prosecutions were brought about by Garda investigating crime. So either you are misinformed or you just have a chip on your shoulder!
No Gerry, no chip here, I support the Gardai, that doesn’t mean I have to agree with the withholding of suspect descriptions. They’ve always been a useful community protection tool when dangerous people are at large, which is the case here. This is a strange policy development I’ve noticed in recent times and I can’t see the logic behind it.
It may be useful in conserving scarce resources for other functions such as traffic, it may or may not have an effect in the courtroom. There may even be anti bigotry reasons in some cases. These are issue that the Garda management and the prosecution people should sort out themselves without lazily resorting to deteriorating the public policing and protection function. Public protection should always override organisational convenience.
Garage is 2 minute walk Garda station. There Harley ever there.
Clane is an awful shi*hole
Nope.
Now why would you offer that nugget, what don’t you like?
Which petrol station was it? The one on the barberstown side town?
have your say