Polanski can testify via video

Legal precedent will be set when film director Roman Polanski gives evidence in an English court via video link from a Paris hotel room to avoid the risk of extradition to the United States for a child sex offense.

England’s highest court ruled Thursday that the 71-year-old filmmaker should be allowed to sue the publishers of U.S. magazine Vanity Fair for libel from the safety of France.

Polanski’s lawyers say it will be the first time a libel claimant has given evidence at his trial via video link.

In a decision that surprised legal experts, the Law Lords overturned an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal that Polanski should live by the “normal processes of the law” and come to England to take the witness stand.

Polanski’s legal team said the decision would be widely interpreted as the next step toward the “virtual trial.”

At issue is a 2002 Vanity Fair article that said Polanski propositioned a woman in a New York restaurant when he stopped there on the way to the funeral of his actress wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969. He says it never happened.

Oscar-winner Polanski has been wanted in the United States since 1977. After pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl, he fled the country and has never been back to the United States or Britain.

If he comes to Britain to pursue his libel action, he faces possible extradition to the United States. He cannot be extradited from his native France for the crime.