Hard-headed Swiss help criminals

Switzerland's refusal to extradite Roman Polanski enrages Johann Hari in the liberal daily The Independent: "Roman Polanski admitted his crime before he ran away and, for years afterwards, he boasted from exile that every man wanted to do what he did. ... But this is not enough, it seems, for the Swiss government to return him to the US to face trial. They have found a legalistic loophole that enables them to let him go - while admitting "national interests" may be a factor. This may be a reference to pressure from neighbouring France to free their citizen. As a Swiss citizen, I think I can say without being offensive, we all remember the bargains Swiss governments have made in the past to preserve their "national interests". This is in a long tradition of helping criminals and calling it Swiss hard-headedness."

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