Roman Polanski Extradition Sought From Poland
The United States is again seeking to extradite convicted filmmaker Roman Polanski — this time from Poland — over a 1977 sex crime conviction.
Polish officials informed media outlets on Wednesday that they had received an extradition request from Los Angeles prosecutors and that Polanski would likely be brought in for questioning by local authorities in Krakow.
Polanski, 81, the son of Polish Jews and a Holocaust survivor, is a Polish citizen, and a spokesman for the Polish prosecutor-general told The Associated Press that Poland as a rule does not extradite its citizens.
In October, Polish authorities refused a U.S. request to arrest Polanski, whose lawyers subsequently asked for a new hearing in the United States in an attempt to have the charges dropped. The request was refused by a California judge.
Judges and prosecutors in the case have insisted repeatedly that Polanski return to the United States for any rehearing of the case, a demand that Polanski has long resisted.
Polanski is planning to shoot a film in Poland in the coming months about the Dreyfus affair.
He fled to France in 1978 after being pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, a 13-year-old girl. The U.S. has sought his extradition from France and Switzerland.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.