Swiss won’t fight Polanski bail ruling

(CNN) – Swiss authorities will not fight to keep Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski in jail while he battles extradition to the United States on a sex charge, they said Thursday.

A Swiss judge ruled Wednesday Polanski could be transferred to house arrest if he posts bail of 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.5 million). The Swiss Federal Office of Justice could have appealed the decision.

The filmmaker was arrested in Switzerland in September on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a 1977 sex case.

Wednesday’s decision to grant him bail reverses an earlier court decision.

Last month, the Swiss Criminal Court refused Polanski’s request to be released on bail and said the director posed a high flight risk, according to court documents.

The Swiss Criminal Court said measures such as revoking Polanski’s travel documents and requiring him to report daily to the police would not reduce the possibility that the director would flee.

Polanski, 76, pleaded guilty in August 1977 to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl five months earlier. He was 43 at the time.

Los Angeles, California, prosecutors dropped other charges in exchange for his guilty plea.

But Polanski fled the country before he was sentenced, after he learned the judge might not go along with the short jail term he expected to get from the plea agreement.

Polanski remained free — mostly living in France — before he was arrested in Switzerland on a 31-year-old arrest warrant. Los Angeles authorities said they sought his arrest when they learned he would be traveling to Switzerland for a film festival in September.

Polanski agreed to pay his sexual assault victim $500,000 to settle a damage claim she filed against him nearly 12 years after the crime, according to court papers released October 2.

Polanski still owed the money — plus another $100,000 in interest — three years after the 1993 settlement, according to the documents.

The victim sought money for damages suffered when Polanski had sex with her. She claimed Polanski plied her with alcohol and quaaludes during a photo shoot at the Hollywood Hills home of actor Jack Nicholson.

It’s not clear if Polanski ever completed paying the debt to the woman, although the court papers document efforts by her lawyers to garnish residuals and other payments owed to Polanski by the Screen Actors Guild, movie studios and other Hollywood businesses.

The victim came forward long ago and made her identity public — saying she was disturbed by how the criminal case had been handled. Samantha Geimer, now 45 and a married mother of three, called in January for the case to be tossed out.

Polanski’s arrest has divided public opinion, even in Hollywood. Some high-profile filmmakers, such as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar, have called for his release. Others, including actors Kirstie Alley and Paul Petersen, refuse to defend him.

“JUST FOR THE RECORD….RAPE IS RAPE…this is one HOLLYWOOD STAR who does not CELEBRATE or DEFEND Roman Polanski..his ART did not RAPE her,” Alley wrote on Twitter.

Petersen, a former child actor and president of A Minor Consideration, which advocates on behalf of young performers, said was shocked Polanski’s colleagues were taking his side.

“I can’t believe that Hollywood has separated itself so completely from American morality,” Petersen said. “It is yet another case of Hollywood being out of sync with most of America.”

Polanski won an Academy Award for Best Director in 2003 for “The Pianist.” He was nominated for a best director Oscar for “Tess” and “Chinatown,” and for best writing for “Rosemary’s Baby,” which he also directed.

CNN’s Sarah Sultoon in London, England, contributed to this report.

Pentagon hacker ‘hopeful’ despite legal setback

London, England (CNN) — The lawyer for hacker Gary McKinnon, who has admitted breaking into computers at NASA and the Pentagon, said Friday she would continue to fight his extradition to the United States after a top British politician said he would not intervene.

Lawyer Karen Todner told CNN she and her client were “extremely disappointed” by British Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s statement Thursday. She said they would seek a judicial review of Johnson’s decision in the coming week.

“We’ve got to remain hopeful,” Todner said. “We’re not going to give up.”

McKinnon, a British citizen, has admitted breaking the law and intentionally gaining unauthorized access to U.S. government computers.

The U.S. government says McKinnon carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all time, accessing 97 computers from his home in London for a year starting in March 2001, and costing the government about $1 million.

U.S. authorities want him extradited to face trial in the United States.

McKinnon, currently free on bail in England, has said he was simply doing research to find out whether the U.S. government was covering up the existence of UFOs.

McKinnon was on the brink of extradition in August 2008, when the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, refused to reconsider the decision to send him to the United States, effectively clearing the way for his transfer.

Shortly after that decision, however, McKinnon was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and he claims that diagnosis changed the case for extradition.

People with Asperger syndrome suffer difficulty in social relationships, communication, and social imagination, according to The National Autistic Society in Britain. Asperger syndrome may often include having special interests and becoming anxious if a routine is broken.

Todner and McKinnon’s family say extraditing him to the United States would breach his human rights as an Asperger sufferer.

McKinnon made fresh appeals in Britain after his diagnosis and got as far as the High Court, which turned down his appeal. Britain’s Supreme Court refused to hear his case, leading McKinnon to appeal to Johnson directly.

Johnson said in his statement Thursday he does not believe extradition would breach McKinnon’s human rights, so he would not stop extradition from going ahead.

The home secretary said he had also received assurances from U.S. officials that McKinnon’s health needs would be met.

“It is also clear from the proceedings to date that Mr. McKinnon will not, if convicted, serve any of his sentence in a supermax prison,” Johnson said.

The minister added that if McKinnon should be extradited, charged and convicted in the United States and seek repatriation to the United Kingdom to serve a custodial sentence, the British government would facilitate his application quickly.

Todner said she was unconvinced by Johnson’s statement and said any assurance that the Americans can deal with prisoners with Asperger is “completely not right.”

“The Americans said they would provide psychiatric assistance on the trip over, but only if the U.K. pays for it,” she said.

Should their efforts to seek a judicial review fail, Todner said they could apply again to the European Court of Human Rights, which was not aware of McKinnon’s diagnosis the last time.

After the Supreme Court refused to hear McKinnon’s case last month, Todner said her client was on the brink of suicide.

While that has abated, she said a psychiatric report on her client shows he is suffering from a serious depressive condition.

“He is on treatment now, though, and he is on medication, and that’s making him a bit more stable than he was. But it’s certainly not good,” she said.

McKinnon is thought to have acted alone, with no known connection to any terrorist organization, said Paul McNulty, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

A U.S. federal grand jury indicted McKinnon on seven counts of computer fraud and related activity. If convicted, he would face a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count and a $250,000 fine.

McKinnon has said it was easy for him to access the secret files.