Switzerland this week said it would not extradite film director Roman Polanski to the U.S. to face 33-year-old child-rape charges, prompting a rebuke from the U.S. government. Polanski, 77, was charged with drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old California girl in 1977. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of illegal sex with a minor and served part of a 90-day sentence, but fled after learning the plea deal might be overturned. Arrested in Switzerland last fall, he was kept under house arrest at his chalet in the Alps, becoming a cause célèbre for Hollywood stars and European intellectuals.
In freeing Polanski, the Swiss Justice Ministry said U.S. authorities had failed to provide a document that may have shown the judge acted improperly. The State Department said it would continue to seek Polanski’s arrest. “A 13-year-old girl was drugged and raped,” spokesman Philip Crowley said. “This is not a matter of technicality.”
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But he’s a celebrity, said the Los Angeles Times, and this is “celebrity justice.” Switzerland’s obligation under international law was simply to “return a fugitive.” Instead, cowed by Polanski’s star power, the Swiss government “substituted its judgment for that of the U.S. legal system.”
It’s too bad Polanski is “not a legitimate candidate for kidnapping and rendition by the CIA,” said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. This admitted rapist has “never shown remorse”—indeed, he says his detractors are just jealous because he got to have sex with young girls. “As long as he steers clear of U.S. justice, why don’t we steer clear of his movies?”