Is Roman Polanski a victim or just a convicted sex criminal?

Monday night at 10 p.m. on HBO, the effort to rehabilitate the image of director Roman Polanski continues with the documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.”

(It debuted earlier this year at Sundance, where it won an award for editing.)

There’s a decided effort to make him appear to be a victim — to minimize his 1977 conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

But the fact remains that he fled the country rather than face sentencing. That he claimed in his autobiography that he had been set up by the mother of the 13-year-old girl he had sex with (when he was in his mid-40s).

Does that matter? He still had sex with a 13-year-old girl. No matter what the prosecutors or the judge in the Polanski case did or didn’t do, that’s still a fact.

Maybe I’m unforgiving because I have daughters.

Are there mitigating circumstances? Is Polanski a victim?