RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Child Fucker Given His Oscar

The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man on Monday after rejecting a U.S. request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The Swiss mostly blamed U.S. authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski's sentencing procedure in 1977-1978.

The stunning decision could end the United States' three-decade pursuit of Polanski, unless he travels to another country that would be willing to apprehend him and weigh sending him to Los Angeles. France, where he has spent much of his time, does not extradite its own citizens, and the public scrutiny over Switzerland's deliberations may dissuade other nations from making such a spectacular arrest.

The Swiss government said it had sought confidential testimony given on Jan. 26 by Roger Gunson, the Los Angeles attorney in charge of the original prosecution against Polanski. Washington rejected the request.

"Mr. Polanski can now move freely. Since 12:30 today he's a free man," Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf declared.

....

Based on references to Gunson's testimony in U.S. courts, the Swiss said it "should prove" that Polanski served his sentence after undergoing 42 days of diagnostic study, the statement said.

"If this were the case, Roman Polanski would actually have already served his sentence and therefore both the proceedings on which the U.S. extradition request is founded and the request itself would have no foundation," the ministry said.

The Justice Ministry also said that national interests were taken into consideration in the decision.

"The 76-year-old French-Polish film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the USA," the ministry said in a statement. "The freedom-restricting measures against him have been revoked."

Polanski's lawyer Herve Temime said the director was still at his Swiss chalet in the resort of Gstaad, where he has been held under house arrest since December.

Switzerland's top justice official said he could now leave.

Temime told The Associated Press by telephone from his office in Paris that his client was ready to enjoy his freedom.

"This decision was certainly not expected," Temime said.

He praised Swiss authorities for making the responsible decision.

Approving extradition had seemed the likeliest scenario after Polanski was arrested on Sept. 26 as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. Polanski had also suffered a series of legal setbacks this year in California courts.

Switzerland handles about 200 extradition requests a year and only about 5 percent are rejected, Widmer-Schlumpf said.

Widmer-Schlumpf said this decision was not meant to excuse Polanski's crime, saying the issue was "not about deciding whether he is guilty or not guilty."

The government said extradition had to be rejected "considering the persisting doubts concerning the presentation of the facts of the case."

Beyond the legal confusion, Polanski's extradition is a complicated and diplomatically sensitive because of Polanski's status as a cultural icon in France and Poland, where he holds dual citizenship, and his history as a Holocaust survivor whose first wife was murdered by crazed followers of cult leader Charles Manson in California.

Widmer-Schlumpf said she informed authorities in the United States, France and Poland, in addition to Polanski's lawyer.

We know he penetrated her. We know at the time she had been drinking. We know he didn't use physical force to do any of these things.

That's all we know.

If Franta can discredit her comments that she's forgiven him and that he shouldn't be denied his awards, then I can discredit her comments on exactly what happened that day.

The legal system is not perfect. There is no truth-meter that can detect whether or not people are telling the truth about certain events. We have to decide these things with our imperfect human reason. Reason that, whether we like it or not, can be swayed by emotion.

A lawyer tells a little girl to say that a man forced her to rape him, maybe even convinces her for the time being that that's what he did. Why does the lawyer do this? Because he knows that if that little girl gets up there and says that convincingly(and most of the time the girl won't know any better, it's not her fault), there isn't a jury or judge in the universe that's going to let off that rapist lightly. Boom. There's your conviction, there's your compensation. If he wasn't already, that lawyer is now rich, and so is the family of the little girl.

I'm not saying that that's what happened. But stuff like that happens. A lot. It's sad, but it's reality. There are so many cases of it, it's sickening. And it's stuff like that that makes me very, very, very hesistant to take what "he said/she said" as absolute truth.

That's why I'm not going to judge Roman Polanski. Or anybody. Is he a criminal? Absolutely. Without question. Are all criminals evil people? Are all statutory rapists evil people?

New York Times:

• While a backlash emerged Tuesday among French politicians of all stripes about whether their government and others should have rushed to embrace the cause of the jailed film director Roman Polanski, his American legal team picked up an influential new member: the lawyer Reid Weingarten, a well-known Washington power player and close friend and associate of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
  
  The recruiting of Mr. Weingarten was a strong signal that Mr. Polanski’s legal team intends to push hard on the Washington end of the case... A former government lawyer who once worked in the Justice Department’s public integrity division, Mr. Weingarten is described as one of Mr. Holder’s closest friends, and joined him in founding the See Forever Foundation, which helps disadvantaged children.

Holder is not responsible for the decision of his friend. But if I were him, I'd be a little nervous about one of my best friends taking a role in a supremely controversial case.

This also tends to confirm the idea that the defense in this case is at least going to try and call in some of the favors the Hollywood left thinks they are owed by the Obama administration.