Swiss court lets Roman Polanski off the hook

REEL NEWS:There's no question about the identity of this week's big movie story.

Following 10 months of haggling and squabbling, it has been confirmed that the Swiss authorities will not allow the extradition of Roman Polanski to the United States. The director, detained last year after flying in for a film festival, is wanted in connection with a charge of statutory rape dating back to 1977.

The news came as a surprise to most legal experts, who felt that, having permitted the initial arrest, the Swiss were likely to allow the procedure to continue. Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf, a Bern official, was circumspect in her explanations. “The reason for the decision lies in the fact that it was not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty a fault in the US extraditionary request,” she said.

Now 76, Polanski seems likely to finish his days at liberty in France, but that doesn’t mean the US authorities have given up their pursuit. Steve Cooley, a Los Angeles County district attorney, said the Swiss decision was a “disservice to justice and other victims as a whole”.

After admitting that the chances of ever seeing Polanski behind bars were slim, Cooley went on to suggest that he took the decision personally. The judgment was, apparently, a “rejection of the competency of the California courts”.

At any rate, this chapter in the saga appears to be closed.