Roman Polanski the film director is being held in custody in Switzerland on an outstanding arrest warrant that was issued some 30 years ago.
Polanski was accused of rape in 1977 after photographing a teenager during a modelling session. The girl said Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude sedative pill at Jack Nicholson’s house.
Polanski was allowed to plead guilty to one of six charges, unlawful sexual intercourse, and was sent to prison for 42 days of evaluation. Lawyers agreed that would be his full sentence, but the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain.
Since then he has been on the run though he has travelled freely throughout Europe in that time. for some reason that I don’t fully understand there appears to be a lot of sympathy for Polanski as if he has been hard done by, though he does not deny having sex with a 13 year old.
Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, revealed that he had written to Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to call for the release of the director. I know they do things a little different in France but surely they recognise his crime, for the French foreign Minister to intervene like this is a disgrace.
Unless I am missing something major here Polanski is a paedophile and only escaped a long prison sentence because he absconded, I don’t see or know of any reason that he should be pardoned just because 30 years has expired, as far as I am aware there is no statute of limitations on crimes of this nature.
It will be fascinating to see how this story develops.
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