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Polanski, who is preparing to shoot a film in Poland, was
interviewed on Wednesday by Polish prosecutors responding to the
U.S. extradition request.
They will refer the request to a court, which, if it wants to
proceed further, will pass the request on to the Polish justice
minister for a final decision. Many Poles view Polanski as one
of their country's greatest living cultural figures.
"If it goes as far as extradition, and I don't expect it will go
that far, I would have a problem, but I'm hoping it won't come
to that," Polanski told a news conference at his lawyers' office
in the southern Polish city of Krakow.
He spent most of the news conference talking about the movie he
is preparing to shoot in Poland, about the Dreyfus affair, a
political scandal that shook France more than a century ago.
Polanski, 81, was born to Polish parents but lives in France. He
is internationally renowned for such films as "Chinatown" and
"The Pianist".
The filmmaker pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sex with
13-year-old Samantha Geimer during a photoshoot in Los Angeles,
fuelled by champagne and drugs.
Polanski served 42 days in jail as part of a 90-day plea
bargain. He fled the United States the following year, believing
the judge hearing his case might overrule the deal and put him
in jail for years.
In 2009, Polanski was arrested in the Swiss city of Zurich on
the U.S. warrant and placed under house arrest. He was freed in
2010 after Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to the
United States.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Krajewski in Warsaw; Writing by
Christian Lowe; Editing by Larry King)
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Filmmaker
Polanski says he does not expect to be extradited to US
