3 May 2010

Polanski pleads to be treated fairly

9:58 pm on 3 May 2010

Film director Roman Polanski has broken his silence to decry the US for seeking his extradition from Switzerland on a 33-year-old child sex case.

The Oscar-winner says prosecutors want him to return so they can serve him "on a platter to the media".

The BBC reports that Polanski, who is under house arrest in his Swiss chalet, has spoken out against extradition in an online magazine run by a prominent supporter, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

"I ask only to be treated fairly like anyone else," Polanski writes, suggesting that the case being prepared against him by California prosecutors is unjust.

"I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition, more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago."

Polanski has been under house arrest in Switzerland since September facing a US arrest warrant over his conviction for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He left the US in 1978 before he could be sentenced.