Roman Polanski Release Request Denied

By Chris Jancelewicz Posted Oct 6th 2009 03:15PM

Swiss authorities have rejected an appeal to release Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski from jail. The film director was arrested last month after fleeing the United States in 1978 to avoid sentencing in an underage sex case.

Reuters is reporting that authorities are also urging the Swiss court dealing with his extradition warrant to reject another appeal by Polanski's lawyers to have him freed, and to refuse any request to release the 76-year-old on bail.

Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and spent 42 days in prison undergoing psychiatric tests. When released, he left the country because he believed a judge would sentence him to up to 50 years behind bars, despite a plea agreement.

"In our view, there is still a very high risk that he will flee and that a release on bail or other measures after a release cannot guarantee Polanski's presence in the extradition procedure," Federal Office of Justice spokesman Folco Galli said.

"We rejected Polanski's appeal (against the extradition arrest warrant) in our answer yesterday to the Federal Penal Court," Galli said.

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Roman Polanski's Life in Pictures

Roman Raymond Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Poland.He is seen here at the age of 30 in 1963. Polanski survived the Holocaust during WWII. Unfortunately, his mother was eventually murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Polanski escaped the Kraków Ghetto and survived the war with the help of a Polish Roman Catholic farmer. After the war he was reunited with his father and moved back to Krakow. He later attended the Polish film school in Lódz, and graduated in 1959.

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Roman Polanskis Life in Pictures

One of Polanski's first films, Knife in the Water, earned its director his first Academy Award nomination (Best Foreign Language Film, 1963). Polanski left communist Poland and ended up in England, where he continued making films. These films were based on original scripts written by himself and regular collaborator, Gérard Brach: Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac, Fearless Vampire Killers. Catherine Deneuve is seen here in London with Polanski (left) and producer Eugene Gutowski in1964 before she started shooting Repulsion.

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Polanski met rising actress Sharon Tate shortly before filming The Fearless Vampire Killers and during the production the two of them began dating. He is seen here with his second wife-to-be at London Airport. Polanski's first marriage was to actress Barbara Lass (née Barbara Kwiatkowska) in 1959. The couple divorced in 1962 when she left him for German actor Karlheinz Böhm.

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On January 20, 1968, Polanski married Sharon Tate in London. In his autobiography, Polanski described his brief time with Tate as the best years of his life.

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This picture was taken in the sixties in London, of American actress Sharon Tate in the arms of her husband.

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In the late 60s Polanski went to the United States, where he established his reputation as a major commercial filmmaker with the success of his first Hollywood film, Rosemary's Baby, starring Mia Farrow. Polanski's screenplay adaptation earned him a second Academy Award nomination. Here the 34-year-old directs Farrow on October 10, 1967.

Polanski and his wife lift their glasses in a toast at the premiere of his film Rosemary's Baby in London, England, Jan. 23, 1969.

An aerial view of the home in the Los Angeles Bel Air district rented by film director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate, in 1969. Previous resident Terry Melcher (son of film icon Doris Day) had angered Charles Manson because he had declined to record some of his music. Melcher and his girlfriend at the time, actress Candice Bergen, had been living at the house but moved out in February 1969. The following month, Polanski and Tate moved in.

On August 9, 1969, Tate, who was eight months pregnant with Polanskis' first child (a boy), and four others (seen here from left: Wojciech Frykowsk, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Steven Parent) were brutally murdered at the Polanskis' rented home. Members of Charles Manson's "Family" entered 10050 Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills intending to "kill everyone there".

After Parent, Sebring, Frykowski, and Folger had been murdered, Tate pleaded for the life of her unborn son. Susan Atkins (pictured) replied that she felt no pity for her and began stabbing her. In this 1969 file photo, Susan Atkins, is shown. She was later convicted of the cult killings.

Swiss authorities have previously said it was very unlikely Polanski would be released on bail.

"This recommendation is disappointing, but doesn't surprise us. We will wait and see what the judges, the magistrates in independent courts, decide," Polanski's lawyer Herve Temime said.

The director, who holds dual French and Polish citizenship, was arrested at the request of the United States when he flew into Switzerland on September 26 to receive a lifetime achievement prize at a film festival.

The filmmaker, who won the best director Oscar for his 2002 film 'The Pianist,' was also accused of giving drugs and alcohol to the girl.

"Regardless of the merits of the underlying case, once a defendant has established a 30-year pattern of flight it is pretty difficult to argue that he will never flee again," said Robert Mintz, a partner with law firm McCarter & English.

U.S. authorities have up to 60 days to make a firm extradition request, but Polanski can appeal to the Swiss courts. U.S. judicial sources have said the complex extradition process could take years if Polanski challenges it.

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