Los Angeles  - Representatives of Roman Polanski urged his release on Tuesday saying that the case against him was tainted by prosecutorial misconduct and that he had already served his punishment for the crime.

The public relations onslaught came as a Swiss court said it would consider his appeal against extradition to the US and as the Los Angeles Times reported that the legal imbroglio would delay the completion of his film The Ghost, starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor.

Polanski was arrested late Saturday in Zurich, Switzerland, on an arrest warrant dating from a 1977 California case in which he pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a 13-year-old girl he plied with champagne and sedatives.

Polanski and his representatives probably have more pressing reasons to resolve the case. But with public opinion firmly in favour of bringing him to justice they are finding it hard to explain why the 76-year-old should not be considered a fugitive.

His most vocal backers so far are his agent Jeff Berg, who as head of International Creative Management is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, and Harvey Weinstein, the Oscar-winning independent movie mogul. Both base their arguments on the same point, that Polanski already served time in prison for his crime and that he only fled when the court renegged on a plea bargain that had seen the director admit to unlawful sex with a minor in exchange for the limited prison term he served before his proposed sentencing.

"The entire narrative surrounding this situation over the last 32 years has been wrought with complications and inconsistencies," Berg said Tuesday on Good Morning America. "Roman was incarcerated. Roman did time in a state prison. My feeling to his critics is you have to look at a much more complex situation surrounding this case."

"The punishment for what happened so many years ago had already been decided," said Weinstein. "The deal was that if he spent time in prison, which he did pre-sentencing, his sentence would be commuted but when he came back to sentencing the judge went back on the deal. This is a miscarriage of justice, and the government is making him a scapegoat."

Even the victim of the crime has called for restraint from prosecutors. Though Samantha Geimer, 45, has pledged to remain silent while the current proceedings are under way, earlier this year she filed court papers pleading for the case to be closed.

"Every time this case is brought to the attention of the court, great focus is made of me, my family, my mother and others," Geimer wrote in her affidavit to the court. "That attention is not pleasant to experience and is not worth maintaining over some irrelevant legal nicety, the continuation of the case."

Judge Peter Espinoza, who heard Polanski appeal to overturn his conviction earlier this year, appeared sympathetic to many of the arguments put forward by Polanski's lawyers. They cited evidence that prosecutors had improperly briefed the original judge in the case, and that the Los Angeles judicial system was biased against him. However while Espinoza agreed there was "substantial misconduct" he ruled that Polanski could not advance his appeal because of his fugitive status.

Such details however often appear irrelevant to mainstream Americans who believe that only Polanski's celebrity status has kept him out of jail until now.

If he is extradited he could face up to 50 years behind bars and even in Los Angeles that's a popular idea if the comments on the Los Angeles Times website are any indication. Only about one in 30 comments there were in favour of the accused director.

"He shouldn't be treated any differently just because he has powerful friends in Hollywood or France," said one commenter "Enough of the PR spin. He's a felon who fled the US illegally. Let this jerk come to court in LA and face justice for raping a child and fleeing prosecution. Nothing else is acceptable. Period." (dpa)