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Kraków court to watch documentary in Polański extradition case

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 22.05.2015 11:13
A Kraków court is to watch a hotly-debated documentary film about director Roman Polański as part of evidence put forward by the defence in an ongoing US extradition case.
Roman Polanski. Image: YoutubeRoman Polanski. Image: Youtube

The trial, which was adjourned in late February, returned to court on Friday although Polański, present during earlier sittings, will not be attending.

The film-maker's lawyers have argued that Marina Zenovich's 2008 film 'Roman Polański: Wanted and Desired' presents essential material concerning the original 1977 US case of unlawful sex with a minor that prompted Polański to flee America in 1978.

Besides casting doubts as to whether the judge in the original case was even-handed in his approach to the trial, the film also includes interviews with victim Samantha Geimer (13 at the time when Polański abused her).

Geimer has publicly forgiven Polański and called for closure on the matter.

The case has proved highly divisive, with those supporting the US line maintaining that double standards cannot be applied and that Polański must face justice.

Polański, who has dual Polish-French citizenship, fled the US to France in February 1978, shortly before being sentenced. He has lived chiefly in Paris since then.

The affair sparked international coverage in 2009, when the director was arrested in Switzerland after a US request for his extradition, but Swiss authorities ultimately backed down after keeping him under house arrest for several months.

Polański, who grew up in Kraków, has visited Poland several times since the Swiss affair, and he aims to make his next film in Poland.

However, after being spotted attending the grand opening of The Museum of the History of Poland's Jews last October in Warsaw (as a Polish Jew, Polański survived the war by being sheltered by gentile families) US authorities filed a further extradition request.

However, regardless of the Krakow court's court's ruling, Poland's minister of justice maintains the right to veto the decision. (nh)

Source: TVP

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