Polish Justice Minister wants Polanski extradition ban lifted
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
31.05.2016 10:30
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said on Tuesday that he will submit a motion to the Supreme Court to overturn a decision that film director Roman Polanski cannot be extradited to the United States.
Roman Polański. Photo: PAP/Andrzej Grygiel
Ziobro, who is also Poland’s Attorney General, told Polish Radio that Polanski “is accused of and wanted in connection with a brutal crime against a child, the rape of a child."
Ziobro said the director should not be treated differently to anyone else because he is famous, adding that Polanski was supported by "high society and a part of the liberal media."
A district court in Kraków, southern Poland, ruled on 30 October that Polanski should not be deported from Poland over an extradition request filed by the United States concerning a 1977 case of unlawful sex with a minor.
A wanted man
Polanski fled the US in February 1978, shortly before being sentenced for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He settled in Paris, where he has been chiefly based ever since.
He was arrested in 2009, while entering Switzerland to receive a prize at the Zurich Film Festival, as a US request for his extradition had been freshly submitted. However, the Swiss authorities ultimately backed down after keeping Polanski under house arrest for several months.
The director returned to France but he has frequently visited Poland, where he grew up in a secular Jewish family in the city of Kraków. (pk)
Source: PAP