Party With Polanski
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Swiss are preparing to release Roman Polanski to house arrest and the details of his release are filtering out:
“A Swiss justice officials was quoted by AFP and Swiss news media as saying Polanski would be allowed to make unlimited phone calls and have full access to e-mail and the Internet. Although he cannot leave his house, he can invite friends over and throw parties at the tony chalet in the ski resort of Gstaad.
“He will have no prison regime,” Justice Ministry spokesman Falco Galli told AFP. “He is completely free to determine his daily schedule. It’s also up to him to get in food and other supplies.”
Police in Gstaad said they might block traffic and restrict access into Polanski’s neighborhood if reporters proved disruptive.”
Polanski will have electronic monitoring and his phone calls will also be monitored. Maybe they will listen in if Polanski decides to thank French President Nicolas Sarkozy for securing Polanski’s release:
“Roman Polanski’s family yesterday praised the role played by Nicolas Sarkozy in securing the film director’s release on bail after two months in a Swiss prison.
The French President “has been very effective” behind the scenes, according to the film director’s sister-in-law Mathilde Seigner, as Mr Polanski prepared to move from a cell to house arrest in his luxury chalet in the exclusive Alpine village of Gstaad.
Ms Seigner refused to elaborate on the nature of Mr Sarkozy’s assistance but the President may have been influenced by his wife Carla Bruni’s own connections with the chic Parisian artisic set to which Mr Polanski, his actress wife Emmanuelle Seigner and her sister all belong.”
The Swiss are reportedly concerned that Polanski, a “first rate skier,” might ski over the border “via a mountain pass into his adopted French homeland and escape US justice a second time.” As a result, they’ve ordered that Polanski turn in his passport, install a surveillance system in his chalet, and wear an electronic bracelet. However:
“While the bracelet will help police to monitor if Mr Polanski is staying put at his chalet during his house arrest, experts said that if he fled, the set-up was not equipped with global positioning system and would therefore not help to track him down.
“The canton of Bern uses the first generation system ,” said Jonas Peter Weber, a professor at the University of Bern.
“We can only check if the person is at home. If the alarm goes off and no police is in the vicinity, the person will be able to flee,” he said.”
Maybe reporters will stay interested in Polanski’s case and he will need a full-time police presence.
— DRJ
Time to dust-off all of those old “French Surrender Monkey” insults.
AD - RtR/OS! (814f72) — 11/29/2009 @ 5:59 pmI’d bet that Los Angeles County could provide a newer ankle bracelet, one which did have GPS; perhaps our esteemed host could see to it that such an offer is made.
Still, Gstaad isn’t exactly a stone’s throw from France; it;s about 30 miles as the crow flies.
The always helpful Dana (474dfc) — 11/29/2009 @ 6:10 pmIf he skies down the hill, he will be difficult to locate. He can easily arrange a very quick trip across the border. I mean, my commute to work is 30 miles, and I have to go during Austin rush hour. So basically, I am under a more effective house arrest than Roman Polanski, admitted rapist.
What more could you expect from the country that saw Jews exterminated and decided to remain neutral.
Dustin (cf255c) — 11/29/2009 @ 6:17 pmThat dishonest JournoList from the WaPo whose husband was working for the child rapist’s release must be pleased.
JD (1f8ada) — 11/29/2009 @ 6:23 pmJust let him ski to France. Maybe there will be an avalanche.
PatAZ (9d1bb3) — 11/29/2009 @ 6:59 pmLike Vito “Cool Lips” Chericola, the Mafia boss of Logan Square, used to say to my friend Chance Purdue: Hey kid, you gots to know the right peoples. If you know the right peoples, everything comeupa roses.
nk (df76d4) — 11/29/2009 @ 7:03 pmhe can invite friends over and throw parties at the tony chalet in the ski resort of Gstaad.
Hey, why don’t we all just show up one day? Once he lets us in, we can drink all his liquor, make a huge mess in the chalet, and then just leave.
JayC (b38239) — 11/29/2009 @ 7:22 pmI got a better Idea, rent a near by chalet and A Russian Nagant with a scope. He’s not James Bond, and I doubt he can out ski a bullet.
PCD (8beddb) — 11/29/2009 @ 7:46 pmNagants aren’t that good—the ones I’ve seen are mostly pretty clapped-out, scope or no scope. Now, a Dragunov sniper rifle—that’d be different. Of course, it’s not the ideal weapon, but they’re available on the surplus market and not terribly expensive.
technomad (677f63) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:54 amDustin wrote:
Yeah, Switzerland was only completely surrounded by Vichy France, Italy and Dermany; the Swiss Army could have attacked in any direction!
The United States knew that Jews were being shipped off to concentration camps, to some unknown but certainly awful fate, but would the United States open its doors to Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe? Hell, no, we wouldn’t! We were bound and determined to follow pre-war immigration quotas, which strictly limited the nationality of immigrants, so as not to “change” the ethnic composition of America.
The historian Dana (3e4784) — 11/30/2009 @ 4:04 amDana, I don’t really understand your argument. Switzerland let millions of people die within a few miles of its borders, and did not use its military to end genocide.
What’s that got to do with the USA? Indeed, our racial policies were wrong headed. But the USA did not fight solely for self interest in WWII. We paid our fair share, while the Swiss got rich with the looted wealth of the murdered.
There no way I can equivocate. I wish we had let all the Jews move to the USA. It was a serious mistake that we did not. I think an argument could be made that it was too late by the time we knew enough, but at least, at some point, we did kill Nazis and show that there is a line that cannot be crossed. With the Swiss, there is no such line outside its own borders. And make no mistake, that helped the Nazis quite a bit.
Dustin (cf255c) — 11/30/2009 @ 4:15 amjeez, could they at least order him to stay away from children?
i’ll say it again. the swiss are officially retarded.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 5:55 amThe French want him back because he would make an ideal UN peacekeeper.
Amphipolis (b120ce) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:15 amShould make an exciting episode of “Mantracker”…
mojo (8096f2) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:18 amThe best account I’ve read of the Swiss predicament in WW II was in Wouk’s “War and Remembrance”. While a good argument can be made the US should have opened its borders, telling someone who didn’t commit suicide (in essence)by standing up to the Nazis is they were not courageous is inane .Lots of people avoid heroics.
corwin (1ff0de) — 11/30/2009 @ 9:38 amThe Swiss’ great shame is that they closed their borders to Jewish refugees, and then confiscated the bank accounts of those consigned to the camps.
AD - RtR/OS! (cc9803) — 11/30/2009 @ 9:46 amWell, let’s not drag WWII into this. This has nothing to do with all of that. it is no more right to condemn the swiss extra hard for letting him out on parole because of their history with the nazis, than to argue polanski shouldn’t be punished at all (or he has “suffered enough”) because he was in the holocaust.
No, the swiss are retarded, and should be condemned, but we have plenty to condemn them on in this individual case alone, without dragging WWII into it.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 9:58 am