Prosecutors in the Roman Polanski case have denied they hid information from defense lawyers and renewed their demand that the filmmaker be returned to the US from Switzerland to face a court hearing and sentencing. Two prosecutors who handle appellate matters for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said they have acted “with the utmost openness and integrity” and provided lawyers with discovery of all evidence. Polanski's lawyers have been pressing for sentencing in absentia. The 76-year-old film director remains under house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland, under 24-hour-a-day electronic monitoring. Deputy district attorneys Irene T Wakabayashi and Phyllis C Asayama argued in a 26-page brief that allowing Polanski to avoid extradition hurts the integrity of the judicial system more than revelations of alleged misconduct by a now-deceased judge who handled the case in the 1970s. The prosecutors also claimed an extradition treaty with Switzerland has been misinterpreted and said Polanski must be returned to Los Angeles under its provisions.
