UNITED States authorities say they have not given up on their bid to extradite film director Roman Polanski over child sex charges.
Switzerland has declared Polanski a free man after refusing a US request that the Polish-born French director be extradited over a 33-year-old sex case.
The district attorney prosecuting Polanski in Los Angeles, Steve Cooley, said he is “deeply disappointed” in the decision and will work with US officials to try to extradite Polanski if he is arrested again.
Polanski, 76, fled the United States on the eve of sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. An arrest warrant in the case remains active. Mr Cooley said the Swiss decision was a “disservice to justice and other victims as a whole”.
He said the department complied with every request made by Swiss and US authorities as part of the extradition process. In Washington DC, the State Department said the US was “disappointed” by the Swiss decision to free Polanski and vowed to keep seeking “justice” against the director.
“We are disappointed by it,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. “The rape of a 13-year-old girl by an adult who should know better and does know better is a crime,” he said. “We will continue to seek justice in this case and we will evaluate our options.”
The Oscar-winning director has been a fugitive from US justice since 1978, after he admitted plying 13-year-old Samantha Geimer with champagne and drugs during a 1977 photo shoot at the Hollywood home of actor Jack Nicholson before having sex with her, despite her protests.
“We have not forgotten about this case,” Mr Crowley said. “We think it sends a very important message regarding how women and girls are treated around the world.”
The Swiss government said it would not extradite him due to a “fault” in the US extradition request relating to whether Polanski had already served his sentence in the US and said it could not appeal the decision.
“Please,” Mr Crowley said dismissively of the Swiss rationale. “A 13-year-girl was drugged and raped by an adult. This is not a matter of technicality.”
Polanski, meanwhile paid “massive thanks” to his supporters after the Swiss ruling.
In a statement through his lawyer Herve Temime, he said: “I simply want, from the bottom of my heart, to thank all those who supported me and tell them today of my great satisfaction. Massive thanks to everyone.”
Mr Temime refused to reveal the filmmaker’s location, hours after Polanski quit the luxurious Alpine chalet where Swiss authorities had ordered him to remain under house arrest while they studied the US demand.
A crowd of of photographers and reporters had gathered outside his home in Paris, hoping for a glimpse of the fugitive from American justice if he chooses to return to his main family residence. Earlier, Polanksi’s wife, 44-year-old French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, welcomed the “end of a nightmare”.
“I am really looking forward to being able to make plans and to once again have a normal family life, especially with my children, who did not deserve this suffering,” Seigner, who has two children with Polanski, said in a statement.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was “delighted” for Polanski, a dual Franco-Polish citizen, saying his wife, children and friends “have supported him with dignity and determination throughout an ordeal in which the attacks deeply affected them”.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski thanked his Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey in a phone conversation for the “prudent decision” to release Polanski.
One of Polanski’s leading supporters in the case, the French writer-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy who had launched a petition in his support, said he was “mad with joy” at the decision.
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