Roman Polanski Faces Extradition To The US Again

Roman Polanski could once again be facing extradition to the US over long-standing child sex charges, it has emerged.

The new Polish justice minister and attorney general, Zbigniew Ziobro, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling made last October by a court in Krakow, which stated that it would be against Polish law to have him extradited.

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But Ziobro was appointed as justice minister after the ruling, and is now calling for it to be annulled, arguing that the director’s fame should not stand in the way of his prosecution.

In a statement, his office said that it believes ‘the defendant should be handed over to the United States’.

The case against the 82-year-old director, who made classic movies including ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, is a long-running one, with US authorities pursuing him for decades.

He was arrested for the rape of a minor, 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, and pleaded guilty to charge in 1977, serving 42 days in prison at which point he was released as part of a plea bargain.

But on learning that the judge was planning to retract the deal, which saw him released on probabation, he fled the country, later living in France and Switzerland.

Geimer has said that though she was taken advantage of and made to have sex, she has since forgiven Polanski and would like the case to be dropped.

“Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others,” she said in court papers, which were filed in 2009.

“That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case.”

Image credit: AP