Roman Polanski Arrested

From indieWIRE (and anywhere else you find movie news):

The Associated Press is reporting that director Roman Polanski has been taken into custody by Swiss police on the 1978 U.S. arrest warrant for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski was flying in to receive an honorary award at the Zurich Film Festival when he was detained late Saturday at the airport, organizers at the festival said in a statement. Zurich police since confirmed the arrest, but have refused to provide more details because he said it was a matter for the Swiss Justice Ministry. Switzerland and the U.S. have an extradition treaty dating back to the 1950s that is still in force.

Festival organizers said Polanski’s detention had caused “shock and dismay,” but that they would go ahead with Sunday’s planned retrospective of the director’s work. The Swiss Directors Association sharply criticized authorities for what it deemed “not only a grotesque farce of justice, but also an immense cultural scandal.”

This comes over a year after the release of Marina Zenovich’s documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” which discussed how Polanski was the subject of a media onslaught after being convicted of statutory rape with a 13 year-old girl. He became the victim of a salacious mix of trumped up headlines, frenzied reporters and an attention-starved judge much more eager to satisfy his own desires to tap into the celebrity mix, than adjudicating justice. He fled the United States for France in the midst of this.

Polanski recently asked a U.S. appeals court in California to overturn a judges’ refusal to throw out his case. He claims misconduct by the now-deceased judge who had arranged a plea bargain and then reneged on it. The now 45-year-old victim, Samantha Geimer, who long ago identified herself publicly, has joined in Polanski’s bid for dismissal, saying she wants the case to be over. She sued Polanski and reached an undisclosed settlement.

Prior to today’s arrest, Polanski for many years avoided visits to countries that were likely to extradite him, such as the United Kingdom. He travelled mostly between France, where he resides, and Poland. As a French citizen, he was protected by France’s limited extradition with the United States.