Jew Roman Polanski requests dismissal of 1977 child sex charge

Thirty years after he fled the United States to avoid sentencing on child abuse charges, Jew Roman Polanski has filed a formal request to have the case dismissed, which if successful would allow him to return.

Lawyers for Polanski, whose directing credits include Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby, cited misconduct by prosecutors and a judge in papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court late last night.

The attorneys said a recent TV documentary about the case, Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired, 'revealed a pattern of misconduct and improper communications between the Superior Court and the District Attorney’s Office in violation of the rule of law and without the knowledge' of the director and his defence.

In 1977, Polanski, a French citizen, was charged with several sex crimes stemming from his relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

He was convicted of unlawful intercourse with a minor, but left the country before sentencing.

During his years in exile Polish-born Polanski also hasn't visited Britain for fear of extradition.

Polanski has continued to direct films while in exile, including the 2002 Holocaust drama The Pianist, for which he won the best-director Oscar.

The 75-year-old film maker has had a troubled life since his birth in Paris to Jewish painter and plastics manufacturer Ryszard Liebling, and his Catholic mother Bula, a native of Russia.

The family returned to Poland in 1939, where a few years later they became the victims of Nazi persecution.

They were forced into the Krakow Ghetto, along with thousands of other Polish Jews.

Polanski's mother was later gassed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and his father barely survived.

After the horrors of the war, he went on to study film and acting in Poland.

Polanski started making short films during the late 1950s, before going on to make three feature films in England based on original scripts created by himself.

He met rising American actress Sharon Tate shortly before filming The Fearless Vampire Killers, and in 1968 the couple married.

In the same year, Polanski moved to the U.S. to establish his reputation as a major commercial film maker.

Tragically a year later, Tate who was eight months pregnant with their first child, a son, was murdered by members of ( the Tribes) Charles Manson's 'Family'.

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