Swiss authorities won’t extradite Polanski until US case is done

February 13, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss authorities won’t extradite Roman Polanski to the United States until courts in Los Angeles rule definitively that the director must face further sentencing in person in a 32-year-old sex case, a senior official said Friday.

In a new twist in Polanski’s long legal saga, the Swiss Justice Ministry’s deputy director said it would make “no sense” to remove him from house arrest at his Alpine chalet while he seeks to resolve his U.S. case in absentia for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski’s lawyers insist that the 76-year-old filmmaker served his full sentence in 1978 when he underwent a diagnostic study at a California prison for 42 days. Los Angeles courts have disagreed, and Polanski’s lawyers have promised to appeal.

“When the question is still open, why should he be extradited?” Rudolf Wyss told The Associated Press. “As long as the question is still open, our decision depends on that.”

Wyss spoke the same day that Polanski’s latest film, “The Ghost Writer,” was to debut at the annual Berlin film festival. The director won’t be on hand for the premiere, or a press conference featuring the thriller’s stars, Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, because he is under house arrest at his chalet in the luxury Swiss resort of Gstaad.