Free Republic

The United States has formally asked Switzerland to extradite detained Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski over a three-decades-old child sex case, Swiss authorities say. "The US Embassy in Bern submitted the formal extradition request to the Federal Office of Justice on 22 October 2009, within the deadline of 40 days stipulated under the bilateral extradition treaty," the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said in a statement on Friday. The request will now be forwarded to the canton of Zurich, where Polanski was detained upon his arrival on September 26 to collect an award at the city's film festival. A local court...

Director Roman Polanski lost an appeal Tuesday to be freed from a Swiss prison ahead of his possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss Criminal Court said releasing Polanski on bail or under house arrest posed a high risk of flight.

GENEVA (AFP) – Dutch-born director Jan Kounen has withdrawn his Cannes-premiered movie about Coco Chanel from the Zurich film festival in protest at the arrest of filmmaker Roman Polanski, the organisers said Friday. Kounen asked the festival to halt the planned first Swiss screening of "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" on Friday evening, festival spokeswoman Nadja Schildknecht told the Swiss news agency ATS. The film, screened as the out-of-competition closing movie at the Cannes Festival this year, tells the story of an intense love affair between the glamorous French fashion icon and destitute Russian composer Igor Stravinsky in the 1920s....