The film director Roman Polanski, who is being held in Switzerland awaiting extradition to the United States, is reported to be undergoing medical tests.
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Polanski’s French lawyer, Hervé Temime, told the French news agency AFP on Saturday that he knew Polanski was being examined, but did not know where and had no further information.
The German-language newspaper Blick said in its Saturday edition that Polanski had been taken to hospital in Zurich on Friday morning, and showed a photo on its front page of the vehicle allegedly taking him there.
It also reported that the French consul-general, Jean-Luc Fauvé, had shortly afterwards turned up at the prison to visit him and left only five minutes later.
Blick said it had learned from a “justice office insider” that Polanski would probably have to stay for two days in hospital, having treatment for a problem that already existed before he was detained. He is 76.
A week ago Temime had said he was “worried” by Polanski’s state of health, describing him as “depressed”.
Polanski, a Franco-Polish dual national, was detained on September 26 at Zurich airport on his way to a film festival where he was to have been honoured for his life’s work.
The arrest was made on the basis of a US warrant for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He admitted the charge, but fled before he could be sentenced.
His lawyers have appealed for him to be released on bail, and say they expect a decision on this shortly.
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Swiss deny Polanski’s appeal for freedom
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Folco Galli, a Federal Justice Office spokesman, said no formal request had yet been received for the filmmaker to be sent back to California but that releasing him on bail in the meantime would not be appropriate. “In our view, there is still a very high risk that he will flee,” he said. “A release…
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Marina Zenovich, the director of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, warns that nobody has anything to gain from the detention of the 76-year-old French-Polish director. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Zurich Film Festival, Zenovich said she was “quite shocked” by the arrest. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. Zenovich, an American who…
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Polanski’s Paris-based lawyer, Hervé Témime, said the filmmaker was in a “fighting mood” and that he would appeal against extradition. Laurent Moreillon, a law professor at Lausanne University, says chances are slim that the director will not be sent back to the United States on decades-old child-sex charges. But, paradoxically, going before a US court…
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Roman Polanski has a long history in the cinema as both an actor and director, starting in his native Poland in the 1950s. His best known films include Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.