Poland restarts procedure

Poland on Tuesday relaunched a procedure to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States to face sentencing over a 1977 case of statutory rape.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced he would appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn a previous decision that Polanski should not face extradition.

"He is accused of a terrible crime against a child, the rape of a child," the minister told Polish public radio.

A lawyer for the 82-year French-Polish director, Jerzy Stachowicz, told AFP that the minister's announcement did not come as a surprise.

"We were expecting this. Ziobro had previously announced he was going to do this. For the moment, we won't be commenting because we don't know whether he has already done it or whether he is about to do it," added Stachowicz.

In October, a local court in the southern city of Krakow ruled that Polanski should not be sent to the United States, a decision prosecutors agreed was "justified."

"Had Poland accepted the US extradition request, it would have violated the rights of Mr Polanski and at the same time the European Convention on Human Rights," judge Dariusz Mazur said at the time.

The Krakow court was fiercely critical of the original US investigation into the filmmaker's case, saying the US judges and prosecutors had flouted "the rules of a fair trial".

One of his lawyers at the time said that the decision "ends the legal proceedings" against Polanski.
However, Ziobro had previously described last year's ruling as "surprising" and announced a review into the decision.

The Polish Supreme Court can either uphold the decision not to extradite Polanski or send the case back to a lower court.

- Tragic life -

Polanski is still wanted by the US for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Geimer after a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

She was 13 at the time. Polanski was 43.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, avoiding a trial, but then fled the country fearing a hefty sentence.

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish Jewish parents, Polanski's family was torn apart by the Holocaust after returning to live in Poland before World War II.

He was eight when the Nazis arrested his parents in Krakow's Jewish ghetto -- sending them to concentration camps from which his mother never returned -- and forcing him into years of wandering with other children.

He survived and went on to win acclaim in Hollywood for his 1962 feature debut in Poland, "Knife in the Water", an erotic thriller about a couple inviting a switchblade-toting hitchhiker onto their yacht.

He arrived in Hollywood in 1968 to shoot his first big international hit, "Rosemary's Baby".

Tragedy shattered Polanski's life again the following year when his heavily-pregnant wife, the model and actress Sharon Tate, and four friends were brutally slaughtered in the director's mansion by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.

Source: AFP