Polanski wants to be 'treated fairly'

Director Roman Polanski, in limboin Switzerlandawaiting possible extradition to the U.S. on 33-year-old sex charges, has spoken out for the first time in months.

In a message posted on the website of a friend, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, and also handed out to news media,the 76-year-old filmmaker states: "I can remain silent no longer because the request for my extradition addressed to the Swiss authorities is founded on a lie."

The director also writes "I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life. I only ask to be treated fairly like anyone else."

He then goes on to plead his case concerning his extradition to the U.S.from house arrest in Switzerland, maintaining that it would be unjust.

"It is true: 33 years ago I pleaded guilty, and I served time at the prison for common law crimes at Chino, not in a VIP prison. That period was to have covered the totality of my sentence. By the time I left prison, the judge had changed his mind and claimed that the time served at Chino did not fulfil the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States."

The Oscar-winning director of The Pianist has been living in his holiday chalet in the ski resort town of Gstaad since December.

Swiss authorities have not yet decided whether to allow his extradition to Los Angeles.

Polanski was accused in 1977 of raping a 13-year-old girl. He wasindicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy. He later pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

But he fled the United States on the eve of sentencing in 1978 and has since made a life in France, where he was born.

Swiss authorities detained him last September when he arrived in Zurich to attend a film festival.

The director's lawyers have been fighting extradition in U.S. courts but in January, a Los Angeles judge ruled Polanski must return to the U.S. to be sentenced on the charges.