The 1977 statutory rape charges that have haunted Roman Polanski may have finally caught up with him. On Saturday he was arrested as he travelled to Switzerland to collect an award at the Zurich Film Festival. Although Polanski has been to the country many times before and even has a home there, he was arrested in a move co-ordinated between the Swiss and US authorities, following a valid arrest request.
Polanski was convicted in 1977 of having sex with a 13-year-old girl, allegedly plying his with pills and alcohol during a photoshhot, but fled America before sentencing. Ever since then US has sought his return, meaning that the Chinatown and Pianist director has had to stay only in countries from which he couldn’t be extradited (for example, he can’t come to the UK). A few years ago Switzerland signed an extradition treaty with the US, and it is under this that Polanski has been arrested.
He now has the right to appeal against his extradition, and his lawyers have suggested that they may argue that the treaty is muddily put together and that Polanski should not therefore have been arrested in the first place.
It’s the latest chapter in a long and very involved story. Polanski claims he only skipped bail because the original judge agreed a plea bargain but then reneged on the deal, which meant he could have been imprisoned for life instead of the 42-days originally agreed. Although the US autorities now agree there was a lot of mismanagement in the original case, they’ve always insisted Polanski has to turn up in person to try and get the charges dropped. He has refused to do this and so has remained a fugitive. Even his victim has since said she wishes the police to drop the whole matter, citing the continued distress publicity around the case causes.
Although Polanski is likely to fight the extradition, it may actually be best for him to just go back to the US and draw a line under this long-running and unpleasant story.