Roman Polanski: US persecuted me when they tried to extradite me
Roman Polanski has claimed he was persecuted by the US authorities that attempted to have him extradited from Europe for the alleged rape of a young girl more than 30 years ago.
In a rare interview,
the acclaimed film director said the experience of being abruptly arrested in Switzerland at the request of the US in 2009 was even worse than his original prosecution in 1977.
Polanski, 80, said his ordeal was more like that which he endured in 1969, when he faced false rumours that he had been involved in the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson family gang.
"I didn't have that at all then," he told Vanity Fair about his original arrest and prosecution. "This was much more like the assassination of Sharon and what happened afterwards".
Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer during a 1977 photo shoot, but fled the US after it emerged he might be sentenced to 50 years in jail.
He was accused of plying Miss Geimer with champagne and a sedative at the shoot, at the Hollywood home of Polanski's friend, the actor Jack Nicholson, before raping her as she asked him to stop.
Polanski served 42 days of psychiatric evaluation in prison as part of a plea deal in 1978, but fled for his native France after learning the judge was likely to sentence him to a further lengthy prison spell.
"It was a nightmare – hell – with this sword hanging over my neck," he told the magazine. "It was such a shock to learn that it's not finished, after they let you out of prison.
"Free! With your bundle under your arm, with the lawyer waiting for you outside, standing there, in your mind it's all over, it's finished.
"And then the judge changed his mind. And I have to go back to prison, and nobody knows how long. I just could not go through that. And that's when I decided".
Polanski, who escaped the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, Poland, in 1943, added: "I thought even if I have to go back to Poland and work all my life there, it's better than going through all this."
The director of Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist lived on the run from the US for 32 years, before being arrested in September 2009 en route to the Zurich Film Festival.
He spent two months in a Swiss jail, before going under house arrest at his chalet in the upmarket ski resort of Gstaad. Swiss authorities said in July 2010 they had rejected America's extradition request.
However he rejected the suggestion that he had lived as a "fugitive", telling the magazine he was "moving freely for 32 years" between his homes and various film projects around Europe.
Nicholson, one of a string of famous friends to have defended Polanski after his arrest, told Vanity Fair: "Roman has never been one to let anything limit what he does. He is a genius".
In an email to the magazine,
Miss Geimer said of the incident: "It was rape. Not only because I was under age, but also because I did not consent."
