As you’ve no doubt heard, yesterday, the government of Switzerland rejected a U.S. request to return fugitive child rapist/film director Roman Polanski to the states for prosecution. He is now, effectively, a free man.
The Independent‘s Johann Hari has the best reaction:
So now we know. If you are a 44-year-old man, you can drug and anally rape a terrified 13-year-old girl as she sobs, says “No, no, no,” and pleads for her asthma medication — all according to the victim’s sworn testimony — and face no punishment at all. You just have to meet two criteria — (a) you have to run away and stay away for a few decades; and (b) you need to direct some good films. If you do, not only will you walk free, there will be a huge campaign to protect you from the “witch-hunt” and you will be lauded as a hero.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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Roman Polanski admitted his crime before he ran away and, for years afterwards, he boasted from exile that every man wanted to do what he did. He chuckled to one interviewer in 1979: “If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see?”
“But… *******, you see… and the young girls. Judges want to **** young girls. Juries want to **** young girls. Everyone wants to **** young girls!”
As others have noted, if we were talking about Father Polanski, the Swiss government wouldn’t have hesitated to extradite.
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