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Filmmaker Polanski will not be extradited from Poland

It is unknown if Poland would act on a U.S. extradition request.

By Ed Adamczyk
Roman Polanski, seen here at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2014, is being sought for extradition by U.S. authorities and was questioned in Poland but not arrested, Polish authorities said. UPI/David Silpa
Roman Polanski, seen here at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2014, is being sought for extradition by U.S. authorities and was questioned in Poland but not arrested, Polish authorities said. UPI/David Silpa | License Photo

KRAKOW, Poland, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Film director Roman Polanski, sought for extradition by U.S. authorities, was questioned in Poland but not arrested, Polish authorities said.

Polanski, who holds Polish and French citizenship, was interviewed in Krakow, where he is intending to make a film, but was allowed to leave afterward. U.S. authorities seek to have him extradited; he fled to Europe in 1977 after he pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor in California. He was arrested in Switzerland in 2010 on a U.S. fugitive warrant, but released because the United States supplied inadequate records.

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Mateusz Martyniuk, a spokesman for the Polish Prosecutor General's office, said Thursday Polanski was allowed to leave after the interview.

"(The issue) was not sent to the court that could impose a temporary arrest, because the prosecution did not find basis for that," Jan Olszewski, one of Polanski's attorneys, told Polish television's TVN24.

A formal request for extradition has not been received by Polish authorities; it is unknown if Poland would act on such a request.

The victim in the 1977 case, Samantha Geimer, was 13 at the time; Polanski was 43. In 2011 Polanski apologized to Geimer, who in 2010 told CNN she was pleased to learn he had not been extradited.

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