Polanski's request to close 40-year-old rape case rejected

Supreme Court of California judge Scott M. Gordon said Polanski "cannot avail himself of the court while standing in contempt of it”.

Gordon declined to say what steps would be taken against Polanski should he arrive in the US but said that an appeal court in California had ruled that the director must return to Los Angeles for sentencing.

The award-winning director, 83, has been wanted by the US authorities for some 40 years over a case dating back to 1977.

His lawyer Harland Braun earlier said he wanted to reach a plea deal in Polanski’s case to enable the director to travel to Los Angeles and appear before a court without fearing arrest.

Braun was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying that Polanski wanted to travel to visit the grave of his late wife, Sharon Tate, who was killed in Los Angeles by followers of Charles Manson in a notorious 1969 murder.

Polanski fled the US in February 1978, shortly before being sentenced for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He settled in Paris, where he has been chiefly based ever since.

He was arrested in 2009 while entering Switzerland to receive a prize at the Zurich Film Festival, as a US request for his extradition had been freshly submitted. However, the Swiss authorities ultimately backed down after keeping Polanski under house arrest for several months.

The director returned to France but he has frequently visited Poland, where he grew up in a secular Jewish family in the city of Kraków. (vb/pk)

Source: PAP