Hypocrisy is common. But Switzerland is a special case

[fpb]

I never did like the land of banks and... banks; tell me whether I have no reason. Everyone knows that Roman Polanski's conviction for child sex in 1978 was a scandal, arranged by a publicity-hungry, corrupt judge who connived with the prosecution in defiance of all law. Not that Polanski was an angel, but even prosecution lawyers have since admitted that the trial was what Bob Dylan would have called a "pig-circus", and that a much more lenient sentence would have been just. So when Polanski fled to France, the US authorities did not make any real effort to have him extradited. Everyone concerned with the trial was ashamed. Now, thirty-one years after the show-trial, the Swiss authorities, for reasons best known to themselves, have entrapped Polanski into visiting Switzerland for a cinema festival and arrested him on the 31-year-old warrant. I am no fan of men who have sex with minors, but this stinks. The Swiss would do better to arrest their own villains, like the filth who murders for hire in the so-called Dignity clinic. And let's not even get on their banking business.

Comments

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

1. I fail to see how the hypocrisy of the Swiss is relevant. Okay, let's say they're the most evil, hypocritical country on Earth. How does that change the question of whether or not Polanski deserves to be delivered to justice? I suppose it might be more satisfying if a country you despise less was the one to do it, but saying that it's wrong for Polanski to be extradited by the Swiss is like saying it's wrong for a rapist to be arrested by a corrupt cop. The cop may be corrupt, but that has nothing to do with whether or not the rapist is guilty.

2. My understanding of the case is that the Swiss didn't just suddenly decide they wanted to extradite him after leaving him alone all these years. The U.S. actually found out what Polanski's flight plan was and delivered it to the Swiss authorities. This time, unlike previous occasions, for the Swiss not to arrest Polanski, they'd have had to deliberately ignore the extradition treaty with the U.S. It's certainly true that they've never lifted a finger to go after him before, but it's the difference between a cop whistling and looking the other way when no one else is around, and having someone with a videocamera pointing at him and saying, "Look! There he is!" They didn't really have much choice, unless they were willing to face down an angry U.S. State Department over Polanski.

3. Just in case you're unaware, this rape of a thirteen-year-old girl was straight up rape, not "just" statutory rape. (The court documents are online if you Google for them.) There was nothing even a little bit ambiguous about it (even if you are one of those sick people -- and I don't think you are -- who believes that the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl can be in any way "ambiguous.") Polanski is a pedophile rapist who used his wealth and privilege to get away with it and then flee justice. I don't care if North Korea was the one to extradite him -- he deserves to face justice.

4. Yes, his victim has long since moved on and wants the case to go away. I understand why she feels that way, and I don't blame her, but while victims' voices are important, they alone do not decide the course of justice. Justice serves society, not just the victim, and criminals don't get acquitted just because their victims, for whatever reason, don't want them convicted.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

1 - Polanski did not flee the charge of rape. Polanski fled when it became clear that the deal that had been reached with the authorities - a deal that was wholly legal within American justice - was going to be broken, and that he was going to be fed to the sharks for reasons best known to a corrupt and lying judge. This is known to everyone who looked at the case.

2 - The comparison between Switzerland and a corrupt cop fails a very, very important test. You are talking as though a European nation were a paid functionary of America. Switzerland is not a functionary; it is a sovereign country, a collectivity, a nation. As a nation, Switzerland, like France, had long given Polanski shelter, in the full knowledge of the facts. To betray him - and betray him in such a shoddy manner - is an ugly stain on national honour. But it is one I would expect from the most corrupt country in Europe.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

The deal he had reached, while legal, was still not a done deal until approved by the judge. Judges usually accept plea agreements, but in the U.S. legal system, they don't have to.

Polanski's decision to flee the country when he realized the judge wasn't going to accept the deal was flight from justice, pure and simple. Was the judge corrupt? Possibly, but I don't think believing the judge is out to get you excuses fleeing from justice any more than being arrested by a corrupt cop means the arrest is automatically invalid.

He certainly had the money and influence to fight a tainted conviction (and many legal authorities believe that if he's returned to the U.S. now, he may well get the conviction overturned).

And, again, even if Switzerland is evil and hypocritical, it still sounds as if you're suggesting that Polanski should get off because you hate the Swiss. If he'd been arrested in England or Italy or somewhere else, would it would be okay to extradite him? I do not understand why the alleged sins of the Swiss mitigate Polanski's own.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You keep on talking as though foreign countries were American cops. Get used to the fact that they are not (with some exceptions, as we will see). Polanski would not have been arrested in France or Italy, because once we have taken the view that such a person deserves our protection, we take that view seriously. As for England, on the other hand, considering its poodle tendencies and traditional lack of honour, one assumes that even an innocent man would have a dire time if a certain foreign power were after his hide. There is a scandalous extradition treaty, which allows the American side to demand the extradition of literally anyone they want, while the British party has no similar rights towards the USA, which is currently causing uproar because a man, a British citizen mind you, who seems to everyone a harmless geek is being forced into an American jail because he hacked into Pentagon computers in search of UFOs. So perhaps your national tendency to think of other governments as your personal paid cops and hit-men would find England a suitable partner; alas, other countries are less pliant.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I used a corrupt cop as an analogy, not because I think the rest of the world should dance to America's tune. The fact remains that Switzerland has a legal extradition treaty with the U.S. that required them to act. Your only argument against extraditing Polanski seems to be that Switzerland is evil.

Inequities in extradition agreements is, again, a wholly different topic. I'm familiar with the McKinnon case, and it's pretty ridiculous, but U.S. authorities are just as overzealous in going after U.S. teenagers who hack government computers.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You say that you do not talk about other countries as American cops, but then you proceed to explain away the McKinnon case because "US authorities are just as overzealous in going after US teenagers who hack government computers". In other words, there is no difference between a teenager under US jurisdiction, and a teenager who is not; you just instinctively talk as though other jurisdictions were to dance to American tunes. Given that, I do not expect you to understand what I mean by national honour. Our countries, and that includes Switzerland, had given an undertaking to protect this man, whether deserving or not, and had carried out that undertaking for 32 years. I keep asking - and nobody has answered yet - is Polanski any more guilty today than he has been for the last three decades? He bought a house in Switzerland years ago, when the Swiss authorities were quite as well aware of his crime and trial as they are now. What has changed? If an undertaking that has held for 32 years can be broken, and broken in such a disgraceful manner - the victim lured to his arrest under guise of a public honour - then no national undertaking is worth a gram of excrement, and no-one is safe. No wonder that Swiss citizens have stated that they are ashamed of their country. They have a lot more to be ashamed of, but it's a start.

Incidentally, if you want to know of an instance in which the Swiss authorities defied an American extradition warrant, treaty or no treaty, google "Marc Rich." And you will find an important fact: that unless you get yourself a poodle government with no sense of national honour, such as the United Kingdom's, an extradition treaty is NOT a guarantee of getting the man you ask for. A sovereign country decides whether to extradite or not - even if, like Switzerland, it is a country of villains.

A few months after - as I said elsewhere -

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The American side have preferred - after months of worldwide publicity - to let Polansky go free rather than reveal in court the records of the negotiations with the judge in the original case. What do they have to hide that they would rather lose their case before the whole world than reveal?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

3 - Another thing. You may not understand this, but, to me, murder is worse than rape, and systematic murder for gain infinitely worse even than the rape of a minor. The Swiss filth have legalized euthanasia and now their clinics carry out a brisk business murdering sick or depressed persons who have been convinced by rapacious relatives or criminal therapists that their life is no longer of any use to anyone. You may think this tolerable; I regard it as beneath vileness, and find it wholly appropriate that these preyers on human flesh should have sold Polanski to the Americans for another show trial. And this does not even tackle the matter of their banking business, which, as an Italian citizen, I have every reason to regard as an international plague.