Did Roman Polanski Make Bail Because Of Obama? UPDATE: Nope
Yes, Roman Polanski will get to leave jail on bail and live at his Swiss chalet while awaiting extradition.
We hope that he’ll stay at his Swiss chalet, anyway.
A Swiss court has accepted film-maker Roman Polanski’s plea to be freed on bail from a Swiss jail where he is being held for a US child sex case.
Polanski has been wanted in the US since fleeing the country in 1978 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex a year earlier with a 13-year-old girl. …
While on bail, Polanski would have to be kept under house arrest and electronic monitoring at his Swiss chalet, according to Associated Press news agency.
The ruling is not thought to affect the Swiss government’s ongoing assessment of whether it should extradite Polanski to the US.
I’m a little surprised he got bail. After all, Polanski is the very definition of a flight risk. He’s rich, and therefore highly mobile, and has spent the last three decades evading prosecution in the United States by fleeing to Europe.
But, as Ed Morrissey notes, this may have less to do with Polanski than US authorities not having filed an official request for extradition. The deadline for filing such is today. With a formal extradition request, I think the Swiss pretty much have to let Polanski go.
Releasing him on bail may be there way of stalling until US authorities move forward.
The question is, why in the world haven’t they made the official request to bring this high-profile fugitive and child rapist back to US justice? It lays with federal authorities to make that request. And, again, given how high-profile Polanski is it’s hard to imagine that the Obama administration isn’t involved with this.
Update: Per the comments, an official extradition request has been filed by the federal authorities. So it looks like this was just a stupid decision by the Swiss.
