Swiss Deny US Request to Extradite Roman Polanski

ZURICH, Switzerland (July 12) -- Film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the United States to respond to accusations of unlawful sexual conduct with a teenager, the Swiss government said, making him a free man and ending months of uncertainty over his fate.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf announced the highly anticipated decision today at a packed news conference in Bern, Switzerland's capital. Widmer-Schlumpf said she had determined it was not possible to "exclude with a necessary certainty a fault" in the U.S. extradition request, and therefore rejected it.

"The Franco-Polish filmmaker will not be extradited to the United States, and the measures of restriction on his liberty have been lifted," she told reporters.

Polanski, who fled the United States in 1978 the day he was to be formally sentenced, has been fighting extradition since September, when Swiss authorities, acting on a request from the United States, arrested him after he landed in Zurich to receive an honorary lifetime award at a film festival. He was originally held in a Zurich prison but posted bail in December and was allowed to move to house arrest at his chalet in the luxury mountain resort of Gstaad.

The director could be spotted occasionally at the chalet, wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet, and seemingly enjoying time with his family.

Lawyers for Polanski were not immediately available for comment after the announcement, and it was not clear where the director would go next.

In a statement, the Swiss Justice Ministry said it had requested that the U.S. supply records of a January hearing by the public prosecutor who was in charge of the case in the 1970s. According to the ministry, the records would prove that Polanski had already served sufficient time in the psychiatric unit of a Californian prison and that "both the proceedings on which the U.S. extradition request is founded and the request itself would have no foundation."

The ministry said the U.S. Justice Department rejected its request for those records in May. "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 statement said.

"Considering the persisting doubts concerning the presentation of the facts of the case, the request has to be rejected."

Polanski, who has never returned to the United States, was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl during a 1977 model shoot. He was initially indicted on six counts, including child molesting, but pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual conduct.

Polanski's arrest, which made headlines for weeks, caused an uproar in the artistic world, with some actors and fellow directors, such as Woody Allen, expressing their support for the filmmaker. Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, filed a request last year with Los Angeles prosecutors urging an end to proceedings against him.

The case is likely to further strain relations between Switzerland and the United States, recently made worse by pressures to ease the renowned Swiss bank secrecy to allow U.S. authorities to go after tax evaders.

The U.S. Embassy in Bern declined to comment today. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who has spearheaded efforts to have Polanski extradited, told The L.A. Times today that he was "genuinely surprised and disappointed" by Switzerland's decision.