Payment for passion

According to the latest information, the film director Roman Polanski was behind bars thanks to a pure chance. The spokeswoman for the prosecutor of the Los Angeles district in vain described the actions of her boss as vigilant vigil. There was no hunt for the pedophile Polanski around the world. It’s just that the young Swiss police officer had a good memory for names. He learned the news that Polanski was going to the Zurich film festival, and remembered that he saw this name on the list of people put on the international wanted list. I checked with the list - it is! He reported to his superiors, the authorities reported to his superiors, then the authorities called the American authorities and asked: "Do you want to arrest Polanski?" From Washington, they called the prosecutor in Los Angeles: "Do you need Polanski?" And he joyfully answered: "And then!"

That's all the hunt. The arrest warrant was published back in 1978. At the end of 2005, Polanski was put on the international wanted list.

The case of Extradition of Roman Polanski is a typical case of the so -called Celebry Justice, "justice for celebrities." Justice this is two varieties. The first is when the accused as the creature of the highest order uses the clearly benevolent attitude of prosecutors, court and public on the basis of his merits to humanity - so to speak, "positive characteristics from the place of work." The second is when the zealous priests of Themis seek a celebrity at all costs in order to demonstrate their principles, show off on television and thus gain popularity.

Polanski's case is a bright second -grade Celebrity Justice. The Boulevard Press of the world eagerly reaches the details of the criminal case of 32 years ago, adding all the new sloppics to the plot. The faces of the facts set forth about six years ago, when Polanski’s film “Pianist” was nominated for an Oscar, but the director did not dare to arrive at the ceremony.

"Rape and sodomization of a 13-year-old child" sounds terrible. But the facts are that Polanski did not know how old his partner was, judging by the photograph, she could be given and all 17; Sex took place by mutual agreement and, in fact, with the consent of the victim’s mother, with whom Polanski spoke on the phone (after all, she did not think that the 44-year-old man and her daughter late in the evening, after photography in frivolous form, some in the house play chess); The victim was by no means a virgin. All this can be read in its testimony to the large jury available to any Internet user.

The seduction of a minor is, of course, a crime. And Polanski pleaded guilty. Recognition was the result of a pre -trial transaction: in exchange for it, the prosecutor's office abandoned other points of charge. As always happens in such cases, the perpetrator was sent into custody for a psychiatric examination for a period of 90 days. Experts prematurely came to the conclusion that the patient was normal, although he survived a serious injury in childhood (his mother died in Auschwitz, his father survived in Mauthausen, he himself fled from the Krakow ghetto and hid in the family of Catholic Poles).

After 42 days, Polansky came out from behind the grate. It remains to approve the deal and make the verdict. The prosecution asked the court to punish Polanski conditionally taking into account the served imprisonment. However, the judge considered such a sentence excessively light. To begin with, he decided to put the accused in prison for the remaining 48 days. Rumor reached Polanski that the judge intends to terminate his deal with prosecutors and make the process in full form, bringing him all the initial accusations. The director did not wait for such a turn and, violating the conditions of liberation on bail, went to France, where he received citizenship by the right of birth in this country.

Subsequently, the injured Samantha Gamer acquired a civil lawsuit to its sediment, and in 1993 the lawyers of the parties entered into an agreement on monetary compensation, the amount of which is unknown (the press has a figure of half a million dollars). There were just reports that Polanski did not seem to pay or paid a delay or not completely, but the Gamer, which is now 45 years old, more than once approved in writing statements to the prosecutor's office, that he had no complaints to Polanski, he believes that he suffered, quite sufficient and even excessive and asks to save her from the new trial, which will injure her children and her husband. In any case, the issue of compensation cannot serve as the basis for arrest.

Nevertheless, all these years, Polanski lived under the Damoclam sword of arrest. His lawyers unsuccessfully tried to close the case on the basis of serious procedural violations committed by the investigation and the court. He had never traveled to the UK, from where he would have been extracted, but in Switzerland he had a house, he came there regularly, and it never occurred to him to fear issuing. If the organizers of the film festival had not announced his arrival ahead of time, and if the young guard of order had not shown vigilance, he would have gotten away with this visit.

In this case, the interests of everyone came together on whom the solution to the issue of extradition depends. Switzerland needs to improve his image in the eyes of the American public. She partly built her well -being in Nazi gold and bank deposits of various dictators and leaders of organized crime. Switzerland serves as a tax harbor and "laundry" to launder dirty income. However, this craft comes to an end. Recently, the UBS bank agreed to pay the US government a fine of 780 million dollars and provide it with 4450 names of its American investors who are allegedly evading taxation. Extradition of Roman Polanski is able to soften the position of Washington in this sensitive issue.

The Minister of Justice of the United States Eric Holder, who signs extradction, needs to increase his personal rating. He was too politicized by the activities of his department and incurred criticism, including by the president, with his ill -conceived and early -ripening statements. The fight against pedophiles is a topic that usually finds the support of the wide masses.

There are reasons to take care of his reputation with the district prosecutor Steve Kuli. In the past, he was already trying to achieve a celebrity condemnation by putting on a bench the defendants of the actor Robert Blake on charges of killing his wife Bonnie Lee Buckley. However, the jury could not bear the unanimous verdict, and Blake was justified. Now Steve Kuli is craving for a new loud process.

The opinions of the Americans about the arrest of Polanski were divided. The argument of his defenders is that the condemnation of a 76-year-old film director, who has not committed the slightest offense since then, does not meet the interests of either society or the victim. The main argument of supporters of extradition is "let the world die, but may justice be done."