FILM DIRECTOR Roman Polanski has ended his public silence over the attempt to have him extradited to the US in relation to a sex crime in the 1970s by accusing the authorities there of “trying to serve me on a platter to the world’s media”.
Polanski (76) is under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting extradition to face sentencing in Los Angeles over a sex crime conviction from 1977. A California judge last month denied a request by his lawyers to sentence him in his absence.
"I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the world's media than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago," Polanski said in a 900-word statement posted on the website La Règle du Jeu.
The site is run by one of his most prominent supporters, the French celebrity philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
“I have had my share of dramas and joys, as we all have, and I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life,” he wrote. “I ask only to be treated fairly, like anyone else.”
The Oscar-winning Franco-Polish director of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatownand The Pianistsuggested the case against him was riddled with problems.
Each paragraph begins with the phrase: “I can no longer remain silent.”
Polanski was originally indicted on six charges, including rape, for having sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and drugs. He pleaded guilty to one count of sex with a minor and spent 42 days in a California prison, but fled the country before final sentencing.
Polanski’s lawyers have argued in court that the original judge, who died in 1993, committed improprieties in the case and say their client’s case should therefore be dismissed.
However, prosecutors and a Los Angeles judge have insisted that even if the original judge acted improperly, Polanski must return to the US to face the court.
“I am far from my family and unable to work,” Polanski wrote in his statement.
“Such are the facts I wished to put before you in the hope that Switzerland will recognise that there are no grounds for extradition and that I shall be able to find peace, be reunited with my family and live in freedom in my native land.”
Last September, Los Angeles prosecutors asked Swiss officials to arrest and extradite Polanski. He is currently confined to his home while Switzerland decides whether to send him to the US.