Director Roman Polanski: Plans to visit his
native country Poland
may have been canceled when he realized that he
might have
been extradited to the United States.
Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
Polanski Saves Poland the Trouble of U.S. Extradition
"Extradition is barred only when the offence committed falls under the statute of limitations of the prosecuting country. In the event, Polanski's crime will never fall under an American statute of limitations. It is therefore possible that the real reason Polanski cancelled his visit was the threat of U.S. extradition."
Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley said Polanski's Switzerland arrest in 2009 was simple a matter of concluding a legal proceeding that has been in limbo since the filmmaker fled the United States in 1978. Although the Swiss refused to extradite Polanski, U.S. Justice still hasn't given up.
On June
6, Roman Polanski was supposed to attend the opening of the annual Polish Film Festival
in Gdynia to accept the Platinum Lions Award for lifetime achievement. But on June
2, organizers announced that “despite an earlier confirmation by Roman Polanski
that he would attend the last two days of the festival, the director has sent a
message saying that he has changed his plans and cancelled his visit to Gdynia.”
There
is speculation that the reason for his decision may have been due to right-wing
opposition leaders Marek
Jurek and Marian Pilka.
They urged, “public institutions and authorities (especially the Ministry of
Culture and National Heritage, the Polish Film Institute, the National
Broadcasting Council and Polish TV - TVP SA)” to boycott the festival
because of the invitation to Polanski, who, “is being prosecuted by the U.S.
Justice System for one of the most socially condemnable crimes - having sex
with a 13-year-old 33 years ago.
In
September 2009, Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for extradition to the
United States. He was released after 10 months of detention; Switzerland
refused to extradite him because the U.S. failed to clarify some the legal
questions posed by Swiss prosecutors. It was at this point that the Polish
Prosecutor's Office posted on its Web site the legal opinion of Prosecutor
General Krzysztof Karsznicki, who stated: “Handing Roman Polanski over to another
country is not possible.” Karsznicki invoked Polish law, according to which under
Poland's statute of limitations, Polanski's crime is no longer prosecutable.
It
turns out, however, that under Article 8 of the bilateral extradition agreement
between Poland and the United States, which was published in the Official Legal
Gazette on May 10, 2010, Poland's statute of limitations does not preclude
Polanski's extradition. According to the provisions of Article 8, extradition is
barred only when the offence committed falls under the statute of limitations of
the prosecuting country. In the event, Polanski's crime will never fall under an
American statue of limitations.
It is
therefore possible that the real reason Polanski cancelled his visit was the threat
of U.S. extradition.
Would
this be a realistic prospect? The issue of extradition would be decided in
court, but ultimately, the final decision would belong to the justice minister
[Krzysztof
Kwiatkowski]. The court would likely take into account the fact that in
Poland, the crime falls under the statute of limitations. In addition, the director’s
lawyers would raise doubts about whether a fair trial would even be possible
given the atmosphere created by the smear campaign against Polanski in the
United States.
And
it is not insignificant that Polanski holds Polish citizenship. However, if the
courts decided to expel Polanski, the last word would be that of the justice
minister. At that point, he would likely take into account the fact that the
United States has failed to comply with a number of Polish extradition requests
- for example, the case of Edward
Mazur (a Polish-American businessman accused by Poland prosecutors of
contracting the murder of Poland's national police chief, General Marek
Papała, in 1998); or Dariusz Przywieczerski,
former CEO of a small Polish firm named Universal, who has been implicated in
the Foreign Debt Service Fund scandal [the biggest case of corruption in modern
Polish history]. America also refuses to extradite Rafal Pietrzak to serve out his
sentence in Poland. In 1996, after a dubious trial, Pietrzak was sentenced to
30 years hard labor in Texas for aggravated sexual assault of his girlfriend's
daughter (Gazeta has repeatedly written about this case).
Therefore,
it is doubtful that Polanski would have been handed over to the U.S., but Poland's
refusal to do so would surely have created problems in relations with America.
