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Expecting to get award in Switzerland, director Polanski detained
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-28 09:15 ZURICH: Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski was taken into custody, Swiss police confirmed yesterday, on a 1978 US 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 on Saturday at the airport, organizers at the festival said in a statement. Zurich police spokesman Stefan Oberlin confirmed Polanski's arrest, but refused to provide more details because he said it was a matter for the Swiss Justice Ministry. "There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," said ministry spokesman Guido Balmer. "That's why he was taken into custody." Balmer said the US would now have to make a formal extradition request. The Polish-born director fled the United States in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. The 76-year-old director of such classic films as Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby has asked a US appeals court in California to overturn a judge's 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. Polanski has lived for the past three decades in France, where his career has continued to flourish. He received a directing Oscar in absentia for the 2002 movie The Pianist. Festival organizers said Polanski's detention had caused "shock and dismay", but that they would go ahead with the planned retrospective of the director's work. A native of France who was taken to Poland by his parents, Polanski escaped Krakow's Jewish ghetto as a child and lived off the charity of strangers. His mother died at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp. He worked his way into filmmaking in Poland, gaining an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film in 1964 for his Knife in the Water. Offered entry to Hollywood, he directed the classic Rosemary's Baby in 1968. His life was shattered in 1969 when his wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four others were gruesomely murdered by followers of the Charles Manson cult. In 1977, he was accused of raping a teenager while photographing her during a modeling session. She said that, despite her protests, he performed oral sex, intercourse and sodomy on her. Polanski was allowed to plead guilty to one of six charges, unlawful sexual intercourse, and was sent to prison for 42 days of evaluation. Lawyers agreed that would be his full sentence, but the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain. Aware the judge would sentence him to more prison time and require his voluntary deportation, Polanski fled to France. The now 45-year-old victim, Samantha Geimer, has joined in Polanski's bid for dismissal. She sued Polanski and reached an undisclosed settlement. AP |
