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Polanski Speaks

Director issues first self-defense since arrest

by
Marc Tracy
May 03, 2010
Polanski in Paris last year.(Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Polanski in Paris last year.(Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Roman Polanski today released his first statement since last September, when he was arrested in Switzerland over an extradition request regarding infamous decades-old rape charges. (The statement has been circulated primarily by famed French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, whose lifelong commitment to the New Philosophy and left-wing principles compels him to stand up for a man who has admitted to having sex with a drugged-up 13-year-old.) The famed director, who as a boy survived the Krakow Ghetto, declares, “I can remain silent no longer because the request for my extradition
addressed to the Swiss authorities is founded on a lie.” You can read the whole thing here.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.