http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/movies/28polanski.html?hp
Roman Polanski Is Arrested in Switzerland
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES — In a stunning move set-up by prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington, Swiss authorities late Saturday arrested the film director Roman Polanski as he arrived at Zurich’s airport, paving the way for his possible extradition to the United States in connection with a 32-year-old sex case.
Mr. Polanski, 76, was detained as he arrived to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival. Although he is expected to oppose extradition, the arrest raised a strong possibility that Mr. Polanski would be returned to the United States to face sentencing under his conviction for having had sex with a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer, in 1977.
The arrest came as a shock to Mr. Polanski and those who have worked closely with him both on movies and in a continuing attempt to lift the outstanding arrest warrant against him. He had just finished shooting a film in Germany and has traveled often to Switzerland, where he maintained a home.
In Paris, the French culture minister, Frederic Mitterand, said in a statement that he was “astonished” by the arrest. In a separate statement, the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said he had spoken with his Swiss counterpart, and communicated “the desire of the French authorities that the rights of Mr. Polanski be fully respected and that this affair rapidly find a favorable resolution.”
The Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement that Mr. Polanski, the renowned director of such celebrated films as “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” was put in “provisional detention” pending extradition based on the United States arrest warrant. “Whether Roman Polanski will be effectively extradited to the USA or not can be established only after the extradition process judicially has been finalized,” the statement said. The ministry’s statement added that Mr. Polanski could fight extradition in various courts.
In Los Angeles, a representative for prosecutors described the arrest as all but inevitable in a game of cat and mouse they had never stopped playing. “Any time word is received that Mr. Polanski is planning to be in a country that has an extradition treaty with the U.S., we go through diplomatic channels with the arrest warrant,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Ms. Gibbons said extradition requests had been pursued several times in the past, particularly when Mr. Polanski was believed to be planning a trip from France, where he lives, to England, which has laws that would allow extradition.
This time around, said Ms. Gibbons, who spoke by telephone on Sunday morning, prosecutors learned more than a week ago that Mr. Polanski was planning to accept the award in Zurich, and requested that the U.S. government officially request the extradition.
Mr. Polanski has in recent months tried to move the longstanding criminal case out of Los Angeles, claiming that the local court system was biased against him. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in January struck down the request; Mr. Polanski’s lawyers filed an appeal in July that is still pending.
In a joint statement, Mr. Polanski’s American lawyers Douglas Dalton, Bart Dalton and Chad Hummel said they had been unaware that any extradition attempt was pending, and had hoped that their pending appeal would resolve the case. “Separate counsel will be retained for those proceedings,” the statement said with regard to the extradition request.
Mr. Dalton, reached by phone on Sunday, declined to discuss the matter. Mr. Hummel, through a representative, declined to comment. Jeff Berg, Mr. Polanski’s talent agent, also had no comment.
Assuming Mr. Polanski does not waive his right to appeal the extradition, he can challenge both the arrest warrant and any eventual extradition order, said Guido Balmer, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Justice Department, 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.” As of Sunday morning, Mr. Polanski’s representatives in Los Angeles did not know precisely where he was being held, according to two people who were briefed on the situation but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
Ms. Geimer has long since identified herself publicly as the victim in the case, and expressed forgiveness for Mr. Polanski, who fled the U.S. on the eve of sentencing in 1978 after becoming convinced that a judge in the case, Laurence J. Rittenband, meant to backtrack on a plea arrangement and send him back to prison.
The legal proceedings around Mr. Polanski heated up again in late 2008 with the release of a documentary film, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” that detailed claims of judicial and prosecutorial wrongdoing at the time of the director’s original arrest.
Citing the film and other evidence, Mr. Polanski’s lawyers asked in December 2008 that the case against him be dropped. In February, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Peter Espinoza rejected the request, citing Mr. Polanski’s fugitive status, though he indicated during a hearing that he was open to arguments that misconduct had occurred in the case.
The documentary, directed by Marina Zenovich, included an interview in which a former deputy prosecutor who was not involved in the Polanski case described having coached Judge Rittenband, who has since died, about Mr. Polanski’s sentencing.
Mr. Polanski was initially indicted in 1977 on six felony charges that included rape, sodomy and providing a controlled substance to Ms. Geimer. He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of having sex with a minor but left the country after becoming convinced he would be sent back to jail after having undergone a 42-day psychiatric evaluation in state prison. He has not been back in the country since, giving his acceptance speech for an Oscar for directing “The Pianist” by satellite from Europe.
Famous as the director of “Knife in the Water,” “Repulsion” and other films — and as the husband of Sharon Tate, who was killed by the Manson crime family — Mr. Polanski became the center of a media storm that foreshadowed the later celebrity tsunamis of O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake.
Mr. Polanski is a French citizen but has long owned a home in Switzerland near the luxury resort of Gstaad. Why Mr. Polanski would suddenly be arrested after flying in and out of Zurich without trouble for years, flummoxed his Hollywood friends on Sunday — although Ms. Gibbons said it was simply a matter of having enough advance notice that Mr. Polanski would visit a country in which he was vulnerable.
The director has been careful to avoid certain countries – he testified by video link in a 2005 libel trial in London rather than risk entering Great Britain – but has traveled freely in Europe for decades, partly to direct new films. In 2007, he was set to film “Pompeii” in Italy before budgetary issues shut down the production. Last spring, he filmed “The Ghost” in Babelsberg, Germany, near where he filmed “The Pianist.”
Mr. Polanski’s arrest could hinder the release of “The Ghost,” a thriller about a ghostwriter whose life is put in jeopardy after he uncovers secrets while completing the memoirs of a former British prime minister. Although foreign rights were pre-sold, sales agents for the film have waited for Mr. Polanski to complete the film before lining up a United States distributor.
The film, slated for release in 2010, is still in post-production.
