WORLD> Europe
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WORLD> Europe
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Polanski fights extradition as Hollywood watches
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-29 10:20
Jeff Berg, Polanski's Los Angeles-based film agent and chief executive of International Creative Management, one of Hollywood's biggest talent agencies, told Reuters that the first priority was to contest the extradition process. But he said there was "global support from the film community" for Polanski. "There has been a worldwide outcry from France, Switzerland and Poland and from a vast number of artists in the United States," Berg said. In Europe, the Zurich Film Festival jury accused Switzerland of "philistine collusion" with US authorities and wore red badges reading "Free Polanski." "We hope today this latest order will be dropped. It is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities," said jury president Debra Winger. Italian actress Monica Bellucci, France's Fanny Ardant, president of the Cannes film festival Gilles Jacob and Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai issued a petition demanding Polanski's immediate release. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told French radio he was working with Poland on the matter and had written to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Questions were raised about a US government pardon, but judicial sources said a pardon cannot be issued for people who have never been formally convicted of a crime, which is the case with Polanski because he fled before being sentenced. During a visit to Paris, Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard said the country had no choice but to enforce the international arrest warrant against the director. Leuthard rejected suggestions Berne had arrested Polanski to help patch up ties strained by a high-profile US tax case against Swiss bank UBS, which agreed a settlement over charges it helped wealthy Americans stash assets in secret accounts. "The two things have absolutely no connection," she said.
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