Switzerland sets Polanski free

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.”

“You’ve got to hand it to those Swiss,” said the New York Daily News in an editorial. They protect the rights of millionaires with secret bank accounts. “Raped children, not so much.” Indeed, Polanski is being feted all over Europe as a persecuted genius, and France, Poland, Germany, and Austria won’t arrest him despite an outstanding warrant. “If he were an ordinary American citizen, or a Catholic priest, he would be pursued even to his grave.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

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?”