The Swiss authorities have decided.
On November 8, 2017, the Swiss judiciary declared the rape charges against filmmaker Roman Polanski (84) at the end of September by a former actress, Renate Langer, who was 15 at the time, in 1972. faced with several other charges and disputed even in the retrospectives devoted to him, the husband of the French actress Emmanuelle Seigner – with whom he had two children, Elvis and Morgane – must rejoice in this court decision.
” To the extent that the facts took place forty-five years ago, the penal prescription – it was a maximum of fifteen years according to the law in force at the time of the facts – took place at the latest in 1987 “, affirmed in a communique the public prosecutor of the canton of Bern, who examined this complaint. ” In application of the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law, an act must be judged according to the law in force at the time of its commission.In the absence of exception to this principle, it also applies to the deadlines of prescription, “said the prosecutor’s office of the canton of Bern in its release, entitled” Reproaches prescribed “.
61-year-old Renate Langer, former actress and model born in Munich, made a statement on 26 September with the Swiss police, in which she said she was raped by the French-Polish filmmaker in the alpine station of Gstaad, when she was 15 years old. She claimed to be out of her silence following the statements of another alleged victim in August, and because her parents were no longer alive.
This complaint is part of a list of charges. In 1977 emerged the case Samantha Geimer. The filmmaker admitted to having had illegal sex with the then 13-year-old at Jack Nicholson’s home in Los Angeles while the actor was traveling. In exchange for this admission, a judge agreed not to withhold more serious charges. But convinced that the latter would return to his promise and send him to prison, the filmmaker fled to France. Today, the victim is asking for the prosecution to be dropped.
In 2010, British actress Charlotte Lewis said that the director forced her to have sex when she was 16 years old. A third woman, identified as “Robin”, had accused her of sexual assault in August when she was just 16 years old, in 1973. The accusations of the last three women are ” groundless “, according to the lawyer. filmmaker, Me Hervé Temime. To these are now added five other women. They claim to have been attacked by Roman Polanski while they were minors. These alleged and anonymous victims chose to speak via the website (” I met Polanski “).
