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Sarkozy 'very effective' in securing Polanski release
Roman Polanski was held at Zurich airport on a US warrant for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977
Roman Polanski’s family yesterday praised the role played by Nicolas Sarkozy in securing the film director’s release on bail after two months in a Swiss prison.
The French President “has been very effective” behind the scenes, according to the film director’s sister-in-law Mathilde Seigner, as Mr Polanski prepared to move from a cell to house arrest in his luxury chalet in the exclusive Alpine village of Gstaad.
Ms Seigner refused to elaborate on the nature of Mr Sarkozy’s assistance but the President may have been influenced by his wife Carla Bruni’s own connections with the chic Parisian artisic set to which Mr Polanski, his actress wife Emmanuelle Seigner and her sister all belong.
The Swiss authorities said that Mr Polanski would be allowed out once the agreed bail of 4.5 million Swiss Francs had been received. They have ordered that he should not leave his chalet - for fear that the first-rate skier might slip over the nearby border via a mountain pass into his adopted French homeland and escape US justice a second time.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is thanks to the President that Roman has been freed, but he has been super,” Mathilde Seigner told Le Parisien newspaper. “The President has been very effective.”
Mr Sarkozy was criticised for speaking out in October following Mr Polanski’s arrest at Zurich airport on September 26. The director was held on a US warrant for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He pleaded guilty in a plea bargain the following year but fled before being sentenced fearing a long stretch in prison.
“Pronouncing justice 32 years after the event, when the accused is 76 years old a good administration of justice,” Mr Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper last month, arguing that the director should be freed on humanitarian grounds.
Mr Polanski holds joint Polish and French citizenship and is regarded as a denizen of the Paris cultural scene where he lives with his wife and their two children. France does not extradite its citizens to the US.
At first French politicians including Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister, and Frédéric Mitterrand, the Culture Minister, were outspoken in their outrage at the arrest but after a couple of weeks France’s public diplomacy fell silent. Clearly efforts were going on in the background all along and have now paid dividends.
Mr Polanski must turn in his passport and have a surveillance system installed at his chalet, where he will wear electronic tagging, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said in a statement.
“He must not leave this house,” the ministry said. Should he violate the terms of release, the bail, raised against the director’s apartment in Paris, will be forfeited to the Swiss Government.
“He will be under house arrest and has also committed to wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet,” it added.
While the bracelet will help police to monitor if Mr Polanski is staying put at his chalet during his house arrest, experts said that if he fled, the set-up was not equipped with global positioning system and would therefore not help to track him down.
“The canton of Bern uses the first generation system ,” said Jonas Peter Weber, a professor at the University of Bern.
“We can only check if the person is at home. If the alarm goes off and no police is in the vicinity , the person will be able to flee,” he said.
The United States has formally asked Switzerland to extradite Mr Polanski and Swiss authorities have yet to say if they would accept the request. Mr Polanski’s US-based lawyers will try to have the case thrown out on December 10.
Two earlier requests to be released on bail were turned down by the criminal court and the Justice Ministry which said the risk of him fleeing the country was too high.
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