Swiss Set Polanski Free
Roman Polanski is a lucky man — and as of Monday, he’s also a free man after a Swiss judge decided that the justification for Polanski’s extradition to the U.S. was flawed. So, the “freedom-restricting measures against him have been revoked,” as the Swiss Justice Ministry put it in an official statement. –KA
Update: The Wrap followed up later on Monday with a report that Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley isn’t giving up that easily on the Polanski case.
The Wrap:
A Swiss judge accepted Polanski’s lawyer’s move to block the extradition.
“In these circumstances it is not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty that Roman Polanski has already served the sentence he was condemned to at the time and that the extradition request is undermined by a serious fault,” the judge, Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, said. “Considering the persisting doubts concerning the presentation of the facts of the case, the request has to be rejected.”
“The United States cannot contest the decision,” Widmer-Schlumpf added. “This is not about qualifying a crime. That is not our duty. This is not about deciding on guilt or innocence.”
The news was said to hit the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office “like a bomb.”