A Swiss court has accepted film-maker Roman Polanski's plea to be freed on $4.5 m bail from a Swiss jail where he is being held for a US child sex case.
The court said Polanski could stay at his chalet in the Swiss Alps. He would be monitored by an electronic tag.
Polanski, 76, has been wanted in the US since fleeing the country in 1978 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex a year earlier with a 13-year-old girl.
He was held in Zurich after travelling from France in September.
'Unusual' ruling
On Wednesday, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court accepted Polanski's bail plea and his offer to surrender his passport.
The court said Polanski would be subjected to "constant electronic surveillance" at his chalet and an electronic tag would be activated if he attempted to leave the premises.
It also said that Polanski - who holds dual French and Polish citizenship - would stay in the prison pending a possible appeal against the ruling.
The Swiss justice ministry has 10 days to appeal against the court's decision.
It is highly unusual for extradition subjects to be granted bail in Switzerland, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes, adding that Polanski's first application was refused.
But this time the court ruled bail conditions should be enough to prevent him fleeing back to France, our correspondent says.
The ruling is not thought to affect the Swiss government's ongoing assessment of whether it should extradite Polanski to the US.
So he is out, but had to cough up 4.5 million in bail, so his flight risk is minimized, and yet I can still see him heading for France at the first chance he gets.
** didn't want to necro the 11 page thread on his arrest, but if a mod feels like merging, who am I to argue**
My hope would be that when this scumbag inevitably walks out of his "super secure" Swiss house the bail money will be sent to the woman he raped, even though she would likely refuse it.
Maybe she can use it build some "Roman Polanski is a child fucking rapist" women's rape treatment centers.
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I'm sure he will get the fuck out of there first chance he gets, basically the rest of you're life behind bars or $4.5 million down the toilet, let's see...
How hard can it be for a multi-millionaire to escape from unguarded house arrest? He just needs to call someone up in France who will charter a helicopter for him that's capable of operating at the altitude of wherever his chalet is. And plenty of people could stomach helping a rapist escape from a country if the number of C-bills involved is in the thousands. It's not like they can lock down airspace over his property or something.
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Master of Ossus wrote:How is his flight risk minimized by a bail payment? The guy's rich, France apparently still supports him, and he's skipped on bail before.
Roman Polanski in 1993 agreed to pay his sexual assault victim $500,000 to settle a damage claim she filed against the fugitive film director, according to court papers released Friday.
Polanski still owed the money -- plus another $100,000 in interest -- three years after the settlement, according to the documents.
It's not clear if Polanski ever completed paying the claim, which was filed 12 years after the crime. The court papers document efforts by the victim's lawyers to garnish residuals and other payments owed to Polanski by the Screen Actors Guild, movie studios and other Hollywood businesses.
but please do look at the second part of my OP statement, "and yet I can still see him heading for France at the first chance he gets."
Though I admit, cosmicalstorm did put it better:
I'm sure he will get the fuck out of there first chance he gets, basically the rest of you're life behind bars or $4.5 million down the toilet, let's see...
The Swiss Federal Criminal Court has decided in favour of film director Roman Polanski's appeal against detention pending extradition.
However, Polanski will remain in detention in Zurich until the Federal Justice Office decides whether to appeal the decision. It has ten days to do so.
On Wednesday evening Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Swiss television she saw no reason to appeal the court's decision.
In a statement, the court said it accepted Polanski's offer to set bail at SFr4.5 million ($4.5 million) together with other guarantees to ensure he does not leave the country.
These measures include the depositing of Polanski's identity papers and placing him under house arrest using electronic monitoring at his holiday chalet in the mountain resort of Gstaad.
The court estimated that the SFr4.5 million is a substantial portion of the fortune of the renowned French-Polish director.
"The 76-year-old appellant is married and the father of two minors," the court said, as it considered Polanski's offer of a cash bail secured by his apartment in Paris. "It can be assumed that as a responsible father he will, especially in view of his advanced age, attach greater importance to the financial security of his family than a younger person."
The court said Polanski would be subjected to "constant electronic surveillance" at his chalet and an alarm would be activated if he left the premises or took off the bracelet.
A Justice Office spokesman, Folco Galli, told swissinfo.ch that it would analyse the court's verdict and decide "quickly" whether it would free Polanski or file an appeal. However, Galli said a decision would not be taken before Thursday.
Polanski's lawyers Lorenz Erni in Zurich and Herve Temime in Paris declined to comment. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office also had no reaction.
International warrant
Polanski was arrested on September 26 as he arrived in Zurich to be honoured at the city's film festival.
He is wanted in the United States for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles. He fled the US before sentencing.
The Swiss justice authorities said they acted in accordance with a mandate from the US, which provided Bern with the number of Polanski's flight and its time of arrival in Switzerland.
A spokesman from the Swiss justice and police ministry said this was standard procedure.
Switzerland signed its current extradition treaty with the US in 1990. It has been in force since 1997. The treaty contractually binds both countries to apprehend anyone sought by the other.
An international warrant for the filmmaker's arrest was issued in 2005 for the crime, which is not covered by the US statute of limitations.
US Officials were kept abreast of the fugitive director's whereabouts over the years.
Why now?
When Polanski was detained at Zurich airport two months ago, questions were raised why Switzerland decided to go after him at that time, even though the director was a frequent visitor to the country.
The justice authorities responded that Switzerland was obliged by treaty to apprehend the director.
Galli said that this was the first time officials had precise details on the director's arrival in Switzerland and an official American request to arrest him.
A court in California is to discuss the Polanski case on December 10.
"Cash is king"
Swiss legal experts had said earlier that Polanski's chances of bail were slim, and even US authorities expressed confidence that a Swiss court wouldn't grant his release.
In October the court rejected Polanski's first bail offer of his Gstaad chalet as collateral, which the director claimed made up more than half of his personal wealth and would definitely guard against his flight because he has two children he must support through school.
This time, the court looked favorably on Polanski's offer of cash and the threat of sacrificing his family's home if he fled justice.
"Cash is king," said Peter Cosandey, a former Zurich prosecutor. Still, he said he could "hardly remember a case where bail is granted to someone who isn't even a full-time Swiss resident."
[R_H] wrote:Not mentionned in the article in the OP is that he also had to give up his ID.
It says that he offered to surrender his passport as a part of the bail plea. However, considering how lax the passport controls are in places like Geneva (many of its suburbs are on the French side of the border), it means absolutely nothing. I have personally crossed those borders several times without having my passport checked. The electronic tag is more difficult to overcome, and unless he actually rents a helicopter, he would have hard time avoiding capture. Or perhaps he could employ the Transporter?
He's gone essentially. He'll never return to switzerland again in his life.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
[R_H] wrote:Not mentionned in the article in the OP is that he also had to give up his ID.
It says that he offered to surrender his passport as a part of the bail plea. However, considering how lax the passport controls are in places like Geneva (many of its suburbs are on the French side of the border), it means absolutely nothing. I have personally crossed those borders several times without having my passport checked. The electronic tag is more difficult to overcome, and unless he actually rents a helicopter, he would have hard time avoiding capture. Or perhaps he could employ the Transporter?
Since he's electronically tagged, that basically means the police have a GPS on his ass 24/7 and they'll be all over him if he so much as tries to tamper with it. If they're anything like the ones in the US there's pretty much no way to circumvent them without alerting someone.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
General Zod wrote:Since he's electronically tagged, that basically means the police have a GPS on his ass 24/7 and they'll be all over him if he so much as tries to tamper with it.
There are many different tagging methods. One simply is a ankle bracelet that stays on your leg and sends an alert signal to a monitoring station installed on your phone line if you leave the broadcast range of the monitoring station.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
General Zod wrote:Since he's electronically tagged, that basically means the police have a GPS on his ass 24/7 and they'll be all over him if he so much as tries to tamper with it.
There are many different tagging methods. One simply is a ankle bracelet that stays on your leg and sends an alert signal to a monitoring station installed on your phone line if you leave the broadcast range of the monitoring station.
Speaking from personal experience, Sheppy?
I've found this whole thing a very interesting study on human nature. Especially the response of art lovers who think his fine films are an excuse to let him go free and make exceptions, and the relative lack of other people trying to argue that he should remain free because of health/age/whatever. Popular opinion vs elite opinion, basically.
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The tracking devices aren't 100% secure as theres many ways around them. And even if he does flee to France we could always put a bounty reward on him. There's been cases where bounty hunters have brought people from other countries back to the US to face justice.
"There are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of photon torpedoes
Fleeing from the US is one thing, fleeing from one European country to another, thats something else in their little club. Honestly, if he actually skips bail a second time and runs to France, when he was released on such conditions as have been described, I think there is a good chance they might send him back to the Swiss.
General Zod wrote:Since he's electronically tagged, that basically means the police have a GPS on his ass 24/7 and they'll be all over him if he so much as tries to tamper with it.
There are many different tagging methods. One simply is a ankle bracelet that stays on your leg and sends an alert signal to a monitoring station installed on your phone line if you leave the broadcast range of the monitoring station.
That's the one that will be used on Polanski. He's lucky, until this October, it wasn't possible to get house arrest for serious crimes (sentences longer than a year), and the electronic monitoring is only used in a few cantons, one of which is Bern, where his villa is.
If he were to flee, there would always be the possibility that his villa would be seized as well, not to mention the bail money.
[R_H] wrote:That's the one that will be used on Polanski.
He's gone then. He can be well away from the villa in a fast car by the time they show up (there's always a lag in reporting); and good luck trying to find one guy if he isn't using a credit card.
If he were to flee, there would always be the possibility that his villa would be seized as well, not to mention the bail money.
He's fleeing. He'll just write off the villa and the bail money as "operating expenses" to his film. He is never coming back to switzerland in any case.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Chris OFarrell wrote:Fleeing from the US is one thing, fleeing from one European country to another, thats something else in their little club. Honestly, if he actually skips bail a second time and runs to France, when he was released on such conditions as have been described, I think there is a good chance they might send him back to the Swiss.
I very much doubt it. French law prohibits the extradition of French citizens, if Polanski managed to flee back to France the fact that he was out on bail in Switzerland wouldn't change anything about that. He could probably be tried for skipping bail in a French court, but he wouldn't be extradited for it. Of course after a stunt like that I doubt Polanski could ever show his face anywhere outside France's borders ever again, but that is beside the point. Unless the French decide he's more trouble than he's worth and revoke his citizenship he's home free as soon as he crosses the border.
I wonder what the hidden agenda is to allow some rich guy to make a mockery of the law. This is patently ridiculous, really. What possessed the court to grant bail to this idiot?
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Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I wonder what the hidden agenda is to allow some rich guy to make a mockery of the law. This is patently ridiculous, really. What possessed the court to grant bail to this idiot?
Sarkozy, if the rumors are correct. Wouldn't be the first time foreign pressure caused the Swiss legal system to give some hot-shot special treatment. (Cough-Gaddafi-Cough)
Well, once he is out, we can always hope that someone who cares about justice gives him the Krombach treatment . . .
"But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books."
