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THE UNITED STATES have asked Poland to extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski, who pleaded guilty in 1977 to raping a 13-year-old but left the country before sentencing, Polish prosecutors said today.
The move comes months after the US attempted to have the French-Polish filmmaker arrested for sex offences when he travelled to Warsaw for the opening of a Jewish museum in October.
Polish prosecutors questioned the 81-year-old maker of The Pianist and Chinatown but allowed him to walk free.
Request to extradite the director
The extradition request was sent on Monday and will be transferred over to the regional prosecutors handling the case, according to Mateusz Martyniuk, spokesman for the general prosecutor’s office.
“The first prosecutors will do is question Polanski,” he told AFP, while refusing to give the filmmaker’s location at the moment.
Polanski was accused of raping Samantha Geimer after a photo shoot in 1977 when he was 43 years old.
He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, avoiding a trial, but then fled the country fearing a hefty sentence.
US officials have pressed for his extradition regularly to no avail.
Polanski, who became a French citizen in 1976 after moving there from Poland, was arrested in Switzerland on an international arrest warrant in 2009. He was released after being held for months.
New hearing?
Polanski’s lawyers recently requested a new hearing to try and close the case on procedural grounds, but a Los Angeles judge refused to reopen the case last month.
Polanski’s lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz told AFP he was aware of the extradition request and refused to say whether his client was currently in Poland.
A Polish court will examine the extradition request. A rejection would mean the case is closed. But if the court approves the request, it will be up to the justice ministry to give the final go-ahead.
Martyniuk told AFP in October that Polanski’s extradition was still possible because “the statute of limitations does not apply to US requests”.
Geimer wrote a book about her encounter with Polanski in 2013, in which she said she was made to drink champagne and was given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson.
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I see the culprit has been identifed from this picture: https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/indianajones/images/3/3b/Indy_cuts_bridge.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100518220542
@Fank Pulman: Comedian, actually…
@Dub_Right: No – they’re funny m8…
@Fank Pulman: it’s kinda funny. And more welcome than your comment TBH.
@Fank Pulman: It was funny. Grow a sense of humour.
@Ciara Baines: Google gainsaying…
@Ciara Baines: Don’t you know that Frank had his funnybone removed,and like his hero Donald Drumpf inserted where the sun don’t shine…
Any rope left over after the repairs should be used to flog them in public.
Why would anyone do this?!
@Deborah Behan: Same reason people vandalize life rings and throw stones at buses.
@Fred O’Connor: So boredom basically.
As always give them enough ROPE & the clowns appear without fail. How potentially dangerous might this have been if safety check had not been done.
If they wanted to cut it down then they would have. It sounds like they wanted to weaken it for it to snap with people on it.
The morons who did this could have killed someone.
@Jayo Breathneach: I somehow doubt the little s##ts confirmed a health and safety check would protect the public before doing this…
@R W: They more than likely came from the Moron Mountains.
Replace w steel cables
Safer and easier maintained
Hard to walk the half mile to the bridge with an angle grinder and power pack
@Quentin Moriarty: They would use a battery powered angle grinder or a pair of bolt cutters. Steel cable can be cut easily with either.
@Andy K: they wouldn’t bother their sacks as it wouldn’t be piano wire
@Quentin Moriarty: Not that hard ,really.
Society should apologise. Clearly this was disaffected youth concerned with Taoiseach Leo’s crackdown on lie-in-loving layabouts illegally drawing triple scratch from the local post office and participating in PBP-SF marches demanding free money and human rights for people allergic to working to improve their lot.
This cry for help should be heard. Let’s build a bridge to a better future for all.
yours,
Simon
@alphanautica: You do realise the rope bridge is in Antrim,right? It was probably some disaffected Fleg wavers.
Have ISIS claimed responsibility?
@Virtual Donal: second time today you’ve cracked that joke. Wasn’t funny the first time either.
@Virtual Donal: Kim Jong Un agents from North Korea !!
If caught they should be charged with attempted murder
I’d say the lads who did this looked fairly ROPEY hope the find them
Iconic?
Yet again that upstart Bob Geldoff has a lot to answer for.
Brain dead idiots
have your say