California, September 29: Roman Polanski’s lawyers may have provoked the director’s arrest by claiming that Los Angeles prosecutors had never sought to extradite him in 30 years, a report says.
The Los Angeles Times today cited two unidentified sources familiar with Polanski’s case as saying that court motions filed in July by defence attorneys had suggested prosecutors were not serious about capturing the film-maker.
The filings in California’s Court of Appeal had sought to dismiss the 32-year-old child sex case that prompted Polanski to flee the US in 1978 prior to his sentencing.
“The district attorney’s office, in the 30 years since Mr. Polanski left the jurisdiction, has not once sought to have him extradited,” attorneys, Chad Hummel, Douglas Dalton and Bart Dalton, argued in a July 7 filing.
A second motion added: “Combined with the fact that no effort has been made to extradite Mr Polanski, the intent here is clear: invoke a physical absence which they caused and deliberately perpetuate in order to preserve the unconstitutional status quo and never address the misconduct head on.”
Sources speaking to the Times on condition of anonymity said the assertions had prompted the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office to seek an opportunity to arrest Polanski.
When Polanski’s presence at a film festival in Switzerland was announced in August, Los Angeles authorities sprang into action.
Polanski was arrested on Saturday as he arrived in Switzerland.
Los Angeles prosecutors issued a statement later today saying they had made repeated inquiries to different countries over the years with a view to detaining Polanski for extradition.
After opening a file on Polanski in February 1978, authorities first made a provisional arrest request later that year after discovering the director may be in England.
Several more contacts with authorities were made during the 1980s and 1990s, before two fruitless attempts to track down Polanski in Thailand and Israel in 2005 and 2007, the statement said.
—Agencies