Polanski free after Swiss reject extradition

Swiss authorities said that Roman Polanski was a free man yesterday after rejecting a request to extradite the film director to the United States to answer for a child sex case dating back to 1977.

"The Franco-Polish film-maker will not be extradited to the United States and the measures of restriction on his liberty have been lifted," Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told reporters at a press conference.

The announcement comes 10 months after Mr Polanski's dramatic arrest on a US warrant which saw him originally confined to prison before being bailed on 4.5 million Swiss francs (€3 million) and ordered to surrender his passport.

Mr Polanski, 76, was also not allowed out of the grounds of his 1,800-square-metre property in the ski resort of Gstaad and fitted with an electronic bracelet.

The Oscar-winner is alleged to have plied a girl called Samatha Geimer with champagne and drugs during a 1977 photo shoot at the Hollywood Hills home of actor friend Jack Nicholson before having sex with her despite her protests.

The director was initially charged with six felony counts, including rape and sodomy. The charge was later reduced to unlawful sexual intercourse after a plea deal agreed in part to spare his victim the ordeal of a trial.

Mr Polanski later served 42 days at a secure unit undergoing psychiatric evaluation but fled the United States on the eve of his sentencing in 1978 amid fears that the trial judge planned to go back on a previously agreed plea deal.

While he fought his extradition, Mr Polanski insisted he had served the time agreed and claims to the contrary in the US extradition warrant were false.

"I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago," he said in an open letter to supporters in May.

"I can remain silent no longer because the California court has dismissed the victim's numerous requests that proceedings against me be dropped, once and for all, to spare her from further harassment every time this affair is raised once more."

The director has received support from a host of prominent members of the film-making industry as well as politicians.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand was one of the first public figures to speak for Polanski after his arrest.

Mr Polanski received another wave of support after he was hit with fresh sex crime allegations in May, this time made by British actress Charlotte Lewis who claimed that the director "forced himself" upon her just after her 16th birthday.

Director's child sex case timeline

1977

• March 10: Mr Polanski, aged 43, invites a 13-year-old girl to take part in a fashion photo session at the Hollywood home of actor Jack Nicholson. The girl tells her parents that he plied her with alcohol and drugs and raped her.

•April 15: Mr Polanski goes on trial on charges including rape and sodomy. He initially pleads not guilty, but under a plea bargain agreement, admits the charge of having unlawful sex with a minor. He is ordered to undergo three months of psychiatric tests, delayed until the end of the year to allow him to complete a film.

1978

• January: After a month and a half in the Chino Penal Institution near Los Angeles, Mr Polanski flees the US. He settles in France, where he was born and has citizenship. France refuses an extradition request.

1994

•He reaches a civil agreement to pay damages to the woman he assaulted. California refuses to lift the criminal charges.

2003

•March: Mr Polanski is awarded an Oscar for his film The Pianist.

The woman he assaulted issues a statement saying she has forgiven Mr Polanski, but confirming that he raped her. The director stays away from the Oscars ceremony, fearing arrest.

2009

•September 26: Mr Polanski, who has previously spent frequent periods in Switzerland, is arrested on his arrival in Zurich for a film festival, pending an extradition request from the US.

• October 23: US authorities submit a formal extradition request.

• November 25: A Swiss court authorises Mr Polanski's release from detention subject to a bail bond and on condition that he remain under effective house arrest at his chalet in the Swiss resort of Gstaad.

2010

• April 22: A California court again rejects a request, submitted by the woman Mr Polanski assaulted, for the case to be dropped.

• May 15: A 42-year-old British actress, Charlotte Lewis, alleges that Mr Polanski sexually abused her when she was 16. Ms Lewis's attorney said the actress was speaking out to counter suggestions that the US case against Mr Polanski was based on an isolated event.