Celebrity Buzz The director was arrested in Switzerland on a 31-year-old international warrant and will likely be extradited to the US. Polanski was convicted of drugging and sleeping with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1978; he fled the country before his sentencing. He has spent most of his time in France, which would not extradite him, and avoided traveling to countries that might. Polanski was on his way to the Zurich Film Festival.
PARIS — Roman Polanski, the director of legendary films including “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” was arrested in Switzerland on a 31-year-old international warrant as he arrived to attend the Zurich Film Festival, the Swiss authorities said Sunday.
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Mr. Polanski was detained by the police Saturday upon his arrival at the Zurich airport, said Guido Balmer, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Justice Department. The director was being held in provisional detention in preparation for a possible extradition to the United States based on an arrest warrant dating to 1978.
Mr. Polanski, 76, was convicted that year in a California court of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl whom he had lured to the home of Jack Nicholson and drugged. Faced with a prison term, he fled the United States just before his sentencing.
Samantha Geimer, the girl with whom Mr. Polanski had sex, has since publicly forgiven him.
Lawyers for Mr. Polanski sought to have the case dismissed last December, claiming that the release of a documentary called “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” had showed “a pattern of misconduct and improper communications” among Los Angeles officials.
In Paris, the city in which Mr. Polanski now lives, the French culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said in a statement that he was “astonished” by the arrest.
The organizers of the Zurich Film Festival, which had been preparing to give Mr. Polanski a lifetime achievement award, said in a statement that they received news of the arrest “with great consternation and shock,” but that they would give Mr. Polanski the award at the earliest possible opportunity. The festival will continue as planned, they said.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice could not immediately be reached for comment.
Assuming Mr. Polanski does not waive his right to appeal, he can challenge both the arrest warrant and any eventual extradition order, Mr. Balmer said, and appeal both issues in the Swiss federal penal court of justice. If he were to lose those appeals, he could then get a final hearing on both issues at the Federal Court of Justice.
Mr. Balmer said he could not estimate how long any appeal might go on, but said: “It’s true that it won’t be a matter of hours.”
NY TIMES
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