Film director under house arrest and facing extradition to US 'overwhelmed' by worldwide messages of sympathy

• Lizzy Davies in Paris
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 December 2009 13.31 GMT
• Article history

Roman Polanski: 'How heartening it is, when one is locked up in a cell, to hear this murmur of human voices and of solidarity in the morning post.' Photograph: Roberto Pfeil/AP

Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning film director under house arrest on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl, has expressed his gratitude to his supporters in an open letter to the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy.

In his first public comments on the case since he was placed in detention in September, the director said he had been "overwhelmed" by the messages of sympathy he had received from "across the world. I would like every one of them to know how heartening it is, when one is locked up in a cell, to hear this murmur of human voices and of solidarity in the morning post," he wrote in the letter. "In the darkest moments, each of their notes has been a source of comfort and hope, and they continue to be so in my current situation."

The 76-year-old, who jumped US bail in 1978 after admitting having sex with a minor, was finally re-arrested at the request of US authorities in September. Instead of picking up the lifetime achievement award he had been promised at a Swiss film festival, he found himself behind bars in Winterthur, near Zurich.

Earlier this month he was released on bail and has been spending the Christmas season with his family at his Alpine chalet in the ski resort of Gstaad. Authorities have indicated that a decision on his extradition to the US will be made in the new year.

In France, where Polanski spent much of his time as a fugitive, the arrest of such a luminary sparked horror among the artistic elite. A French petition demanding his immediate release was signed by hundreds of industry figures including Martin Scorsese and David Lynch.

While others have back-pedalled on their initial support in the face of mounting public revulsion, Levy, the Left Bank philosopher, has been one of the "genius director's" most vocal defenders.

"I have not moved one iota," he told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview on Saturday. "This arrest was a disgrace. This detention was, and still is, a disgrace. This climate of popular justice and lynching … is still a disgrace."

In his letter, the Franco-Polish director thanked Levy for having "supported [him] from the very first day". He asked for his message to be put up on the internet as a means of thanking all the "unknown friends" who, he said, had sent him words of comfort during his arrest.

Authorities aim to avoid media circus when bailed film director leaves jail

• Associated Press in Geneva
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 November 2009 14.58 GMT
• Article history

The Swiss chalet which reportedly belongs to the US film director Roman Polanski. Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AP

The film director Roman Polanski will be placed under house arrest at his Alpine chalet as soon as possible, the Swiss justice ministry said today, announcing it would not appeal against a court decision to release him on bail.

The ministry said it was still deciding whether to extradite the 76-year-old to the United States, where authorities in Los Angeles want him sentenced for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The ministry said, however, that it would not appeal against a Swiss criminal court decision granting Polanski $4.5m (£2.7m) bail on the condition that he wear an electronic bracelet and not leave his Gstaad chalet. Polanski must also surrender his identity documents.

"He must not leave this house," the ministry said in a statement. Should he violate the terms of release, the bail will be forfeited to the Swiss government."

Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said the release would be handled quietly: "We don't want to show him off like an exotic animal," he told The Associated Press.

Polanski was accused of raping the girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a modelling shoot in 1977. He was initially charged with six offences, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.

In exchange, the judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sentence him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. The evaluator released Polanski after 42 days, but the judge said he was going to send him back to serve out the 90 days.

Polanski fled the US on 1 February 1978, the day he was to be sentenced, and has lived in France since.

The court last month rejected Polanski's first bail offer, with his Gstaad chalet as collateral. Before yesterday's decision, Polanski offered a bank guarantee that would cause him to sacrifice his family's home in Paris if he fled justice again.

"I am very happy and relieved," Mathilde Seigner, Polanski's sister-in-law, told Le Parisien newspaper, adding that the director's imprisonment had had "enormous consequences on a psychological level" for his children. After Polanski's release, "we're going to drink a nice glass of champagne and toast together", she said.

Religious education teacher paid for boy to have tattoo during week-long relationship

• Helen Carter
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 14.37 GMT
• Article history

A religious education teacher who admitted 10 charges of engaging a 15-year-old pupil in sexual activity has been jailed today.

Madeleine Martin, 39, of Knutsford, Cheshire, admitted beginning a week-long relationship with the boy, who was under 16 at the time, when she appeared in court in September.

Today she was sentenced to 32 months in prison at Manchester Minshull Street crown court. Martin was also suspended from her job at a Greater Manchester school, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court was told that Martin had qualified as a teacher four years ago and first met her victim in September 2008.

The pair began communicating via the Facebook social networking website and their contact escalated into a sexual relationship.

On 9 February she asked the boy to do something that would remind him of her when they were apart. She drove him to a tattooist and paid for him to have "Mad" and a heart etched onto his skin.

They then drove to a secluded area, where they had sex. The boy quickly decided to end their involvement and told Martin.

He eventually told his mother what had happened and she immediately reported the matter to police in April.

Judge Jonathan Geake told her: "It is clear that your life came to a very low ebb. Unhappily it was against that background that you were trusted with mentoring this young teenage boy who himself was vulnerable in the sense that he was having his own difficulties at school.

"It is clear from the way in which the prosecution presented that case that rather than mentor him in the proper way, you used him as an emotional support and comfort for yourself rather than the other way round.

"You started to abuse the trust you were entrusted with. Eventually you lured him into intimacies which should never have happened and which you now admit should never have happened."

Mark Fireman, in mitigation, said his client had brought "shame on herself and her family" and had lost her career, and her friends. He said at the time of sexual contact she was going through a "very difficult time in her personal life". Her relationship with her husband had ended, and her sister was suffering from terminal cancer and eventually died.

"The matter left her extremely depressed and perhaps vulnerable to thoughts and actions that would not have normally have taken place."

He added: "It is an incident that she bitterly, bitterly regrets. She knows that she has caused great harm."

In a victim impact statement, the boy said he had been taunted by his fellow pupils and had not returned to the school. He also said he was embarrassed to show people the tattoo Martin had encouraged him to get. His mother told the court that her relationship with her son had suffered, and that he had become lethargic and lost interest in his hobbies. She added: "He has lost the sparkle he always had."

Outside court, Detective Sergeant Dave Moores of Tameside Child protection unit said: "Martin's actions will leave emotional scars on her victim and his family and have also impacted on the wider community.

"I would like to praise the bravery of the victim in speaking out and ensuring justice was done for him.

"I am satisfied that she has been given the sentence she deserves and hope this will send a strong message that this behaviour will not be tolerated."

He added that Martin would remain on the sex offenders' register.

• David Smith in Johannesburg
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 October 2009 19.05 GMT
• Article history

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a "dream" by marrying a 17-year-old bride.

Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle.

Hundreds of people attended the extraordinary ceremony this week in Guriceel, in the region of Galguduud. "Today God helped me realise my dream," Dore said. He and his new wife, who is almost a century his junior, are from the same village in Somalia, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. He says his children and two other wives agreed to the marriage, as did Abdulle's parents.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry," the groom said. The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband". Somali adolescent girls are often married off to older men.

Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died. This was his first marriage for three quarters of a century.

Roman Polanski. Photograph: Roberto Pfeil/AP

Los Angeles authorities seeking to imprison fugitive film director Roman Polanski may face a new obstacle in the 32-year-old case: The victim wants no part in it.

Samantha Geimer, who was 13 years old when Polanski gave her drugs and had sex with her, today asked a Los Angeles court to drop the charges against the Chinatown director. Polanski fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to illegal sex. He was arrested in Zurich last month and is fighting extradition to the US.

In a court filing today, Geimer said she has been besieged by nearly 500 calls from news media since Polanski's arrest. She lives in Hawaii and long ago publicly identified herself as the victim and forgave Polanski, but said she and her family have to contend with pressure when he is in the news. She said she is being stalked by journalists from international news organisations and has received interview requests from Oprah Winfrey and CNN's Larry King.

"The pursuit has caused her to have health-related issues," the filing states. "The pursuit has caused her performance at her job to be interfered with and has caused the understandable displeasure of her employer and the real possibility that Samantha could lose her job."

In the filing she asks the court to dismiss the case and ends with: "Leave her alone."

Polanski pleaded guilty to the 1977 act after striking a deal under which he would be sentenced only to the 42 days he had already served in a state prison while undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. But the judge in the case indicated he was inclined to reject the bargain, leaving Polanski at risk of up to 50 years in prison, and he fled.

Since then, Polanski, a dual French and Polish citizen, has lived and worked in France and Switzerland and elsewhere, and accepted his 2002 best director Academy Award for The Pianist via satellite. The Los Angeles county district attorney's office considers Polanski a convicted felon and a fugitive, and began tracking him immediately after he fled.

Roman Polanski is being held in Switzerland on an American arrest warrant over underaged sex with a girl 30 years ago. Photograph: Abdelhak Senna/AFP/Getty Images

Roman Polanski has been denied bail from a Swiss prison where he is being held for possible extradition to the United States on an underage sex charge.

The Swiss justice ministry refused Polanksi's request because of the risk he would flee the country, Folco Galli, a spokesman for the ministry, told the Associated Press.

The appeal was separate from another legal challenge against his arrest submitted by Polanski's lawyers last week. Polanski is expected to be held in custody throughout that appeal and any subsequent challenges from either side.

US authorities have being trying to secure Polanski's extradition since he fled in 1978 while awaiting sentencing after admitting have sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Under Swiss law the US has 60 days to file a formal extradition request. That request must be examined by the justice ministry, and if approved can be appealed against in a number of courts. That appeal hearing is expected to start in the coming weeks.

The film-maker has not set foot in the US since 1978

Roman Polanski agreed to pay his victim of sexual assault $500,000, 15 years after he fled the US, according to court documents released to the media.

The French-Polish director is being held in Switzerland on a US arrest warrant over his 1977 conviction for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The confidential deal between Mr Polanski and the victim, Samantha Geimer, was reached in October 1993.

It was disclosed because of a two-year struggle to get the film-maker to pay.

Mr Polanski - who faces extradition to the US - was detained in Switzerland as he travelled from France to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival.

The last court filing in August 1996 stated that he owed Ms Geimer $604,416.22, including interest. The documents were made available to the media on Friday.

The court records did not reveal whether the 76-year-old director had ever paid, according to the Associated Press.

The director pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with an under-age girl following a plea bargain - he had originally been charged with six offences including rape and sodomy.

Victim sued

He left the US in 1978 before he could be sentenced and has not returned to the country since.

David Finkle, the film-maker's lawyer, said he was unable to recall details of the case and declined comment. Ms Geimer and her family have also been unavailable for comment.

She sued Mr Polanski in December 1988, alleging sexual assault, infliction of emotional distress and seduction.

But in January this year she asked a US court to drop charges against him, saying the continued publication of details "causes harm to me, my husband and children".

Schwarzenegger speaks out

The arrest of Mr Polanski, who won an Oscar in 2002 for The Pianist, a harrowing story of Nazi-occupied Warsaw, has prompted an outcry among some politicians and Hollywood heavyweights.

But on Friday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the film-maker should not get special treatment because he is a "big-time movie director".

A petition has been signed by film-makers including Pedro Almodovar and Stephen Frears, and actors including Monica Bellucci and Fanny Ardant, expressing dismay at Mr Polanski's arrest.

Other Hollywood luminaries, including film producer Harvey Weinstein, have called for Mr Polanski's release.

On Tuesday, US prosecutors said the 76-year-old had been on an Interpol "wanted list" for years.

Roman Polanski in 1979, a year after he fled to France. Photograph: Snap/Rex Features

Roman Polanski faces weeks in jail before an appeal against his arrest over a 32-year statutory rape charge is heard in court, Swiss authorities said today.

The federal criminal court said lawyers for the Oscar-winning director had lodged an appeal that would be heard "within the next weeks." Polanksi is expected to be held in custody throughout the appeal and any subsequent challenges from either side.

Peter Cosandey, a former Zurich prosecutor specialising in international criminal cooperation, said: "In most cases, the imprisoned person has to remain in detention for the whole process."

His chances of exemption from custody were rather small, he added, because Polanski was neither a Swiss citizen nor a permanent resident and was considered at high risk of fleeing justice.

Under Swiss law, the US has 60 days to file a formal extradition request. That request must be examined by the justice ministry, and if approved can be appealed at a number of courts.

Although the director, who lives in France, often stayed at a chalet in the wealthy Swiss town of Gstaad and travelled widely in Europe, a Swiss official said this was the first time law enforcement authorities had solid information from the US enabling them to make an arrest.

Polanski is being held in a Zurich cell, where he receives three meals a day and is allowed outside for one hour of daily exercise.

Family and friends can see him for an hour each week, but that restriction does not apply to official visits from lawyers and consular diplomats. Polanski has met his wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner.

The justice ministry has insisted that politics played no role in its arrest order for Polanski.

Last night, US prosecutors revealed details of their 31-year international hunt for the film director before he was seized in Switzerland at the weekend.

After criticism about the timing of the arrest, the Los Angeles county district attorney's office issued a detailed chronology of its efforts bring Polanski to justice after his admission of sex with an underage girl.

It first attempted to have Polanski extradited from the UK in May 1978 after learning that he may have been in England. Similar moves were made in Canada in 1986, France in 1994, and Thailand in 2005. Polanski was also close to being arrested in Israel in July 2007, but a delay over paperwork requested by the Israelis meant he fled before the arrest could be made.

In July, lawyers for the Oscar-winning director claimed that the US authorities had not tried to arrest him for fear of drawing attention to their own misconduct.

Amid a growing diplomatic row over the arrest, prosecutors gave details of the contacts they had with several countries in their attempts to arrest Polanski.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl while photographing her during a modelling session and was sent to prison for 42 days for evaluation. The judge then tried to renege on the plea bargain struck with Polanski. On the day of sentencing in 1978, aware the judge would send him back to prison, Polanski fled to France.

Chief inspector Thomas Hession of the US Marshals Service, which has an LA-based team that requested the arrest warrant last week, said Polanski had been the subject of an Interpol "red notice" for years. It stated that Polanski was wanted for a specific crime, and that the US was willing to seek his extradition.

Polanski's agent, Jeff Berg, said he was aware of no efforts to arrest the director before Saturday. The timing of the arrest "certainly appears unusual", Berg said, especially since Polanski spent the summer at his house in Switzerland.

Hession said Polanski was arrested because authorities had the advance knowledge and the opportunity. "The idea that we have known where he is and we could have gotten him anytime, that just isn't the case," he said.

France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and said they would be lobbying the US government all the way up to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.

Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, had travelled to Switzerland to accept an award at the Zurich film festival. The event's organisers expressed "great consternation and shock" at his detention.

Diplomatic war brewing as politicians and filmmakers lobby for release of Oscar-winning director after arrest on 1978 US warrant

Blog: Hollywood unites in Roman Polanski's defence

• Helen Pidd, Esther Addley and agencies
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 15.32 BST
• Article history

Award-winning director Roman Polanski was arrested as he landed in Switzerland to attend the Zurich Film Festival Link to this video

A diplomatic war was brewing today over the arrest of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland on a decades-old warrant relating to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and said they would be lobbying the US government all the way up to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.

"In the same way as there is a generous America which we love, there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening, and it is this America which has now shown us its face," he said.

Reports this afternoon said the director had refused to voluntarily go to the US to face charges, raising the prospect of a long and drawn-out legal saga.

Despite being held in Swiss custody for two nights, Polanski remains "totally combative and determined to defend himself", one of his French lawyers said.

Hervé Temime told France Info radio a request for bail would be made today and that he would be "surprised and disappointed" if permission was not granted.

"We are going to start by requesting he be let out of detention, which should in theory happen today," said Temime. "There is no reason ... to keep Roman Polanski in prison.

"I hope we can very quickly bring to an end this situation which seems to me to be totally grotesque."

Polanski is in good spirits, his agent said today. "His voice is strong ... he's very anxious to get this resolved and go home," Jeff Berg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Berg said the film director's arrest on a 1978 US warrant as he arrived in Switzerland from France was a surprise because he has had a house in the country for more than a decade.

"It is surprising because Roman, for the last 12, 15 years, has lived in Switzerland. He has a home; he travels there; he works there," he said.

"His presence there is well-known, as it is through much of Europe, so this came kind of as a shock, given the fact that he was invited to Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award."

Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, had travelled to Switzerland to accept an award at the Zurich film festival. The event's organisers expressed "great consternation and shock" at his detention.

He has hired the Swiss lawyer Lorenz Erni, of the Eschmann & Erni firm, to fight any extradition charges.

The Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda and other Polish filmmakers have appealed to the US, Swiss and Polish authorities for the Paris-born Polanski to be freed.

Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association, said Polanski had spent all of August at his house in the German-speaking village of Gstaad, south-west Switzerland, working on his latest movie, The Ghost.

"Nothing happened" to him during that time, Bromski said, adding that in the eyes of the public, Polanski has already "atoned for the sins of his young years".

Polanski has strong links with Poland, having moved to the country with his Jewish family as a child shortly before the second world war.

His mother died in a Nazi concentration camp but he avoided capture and spent his youth in Poland before moving to the west.

The director has held French citizenship for many years and is married to the French singer and actor Emmanuelle Seigner.

He has spent much of his life in France since fleeing the US in 1978 but regularly visits countries that do not have extradition treaties with the US.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to see the director reunited swiftly with his family, Mitterrand said.

Polanski pleaded guilty to the assault in 1977 but jumped bail and fled the US the following year to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

He has spent more than three decades in exile in Paris, refusing to return to the US even when he won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2003.

Zurich police said he had been detained in the city on Saturday night at the request of the US justice department and was in custody awaiting extradition.

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," Guido Balmer, of the Swiss justice ministry, said. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Polanski was 44 and already a twice Oscar-nominated director when he had sex with Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old model he had hired for a photoshoot, at Jack Nicholson's home in Los Angeles in 1977.

He claimed the sex was consensual, saying the girl was "not unresponsive", but Gailey said he drugged her with painkillers and champagne before carrying out a "very scary" assault.

In recent months, Polanski's lawyers have been seeking, through the US courts, to have the rape charges against him dropped after saying new evidence had emerged in a documentary to show he was the victim of "judicial misconduct" at his original trial.

The documentary showed a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney admitting discussing the case with the trial judge while it was ongoing.