Roman Polanski arrested in Zürich

[Syt]

Movie-Maker Polanski Arrested in Switzerland

ZURICH (Reuters) - Film director Roman Polanski, whose turbulent life has come close to resembling the violent, perverse world of his movies, was arrested in Switzerland on a 1978 U.S. arrest warrant for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old.

Polanski, 76, had been due to receive a prize for his life's work at the Zurich Film Festival on Sunday evening, opening a retrospective of his film career but was arrested on arrival at Zurich airport on Saturday night.

Calling Polanski, who won Best Director Oscar for "The Pianist" in 2003, one of the greatest film directors of our time, the festival directors said they had "received this news with great consternation and shock."

Polanski's Los Angeles agent and the U.S. embassy in Zurich were not immediately available for comment.

Zurich Cantonal Police spokesman Stefan Oberlin said Polanski's arrest had been carried out on instructions from the Federal Justice Department in Berne.

Polanski was arrested in the United States in the late 1970s and charged with giving drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl and having unlawful sex with her at a photographic shoot at Jack Nicholson's Hollywood home.

Maintaining the girl was sexually experienced and had consented, Polanski spent 42 days in prison undergoing psychiatric tests but fled the country before being sentenced.

Considered by U.S. authorities as a fugitive from justice, Polanski, whose films include "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," has lived in France avoiding countries that have extradition treaties with the United States.

TURBULENT LIFE

Few lives have turned into the macabre public spectacle that Polanski's has, first after the gruesome murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate in 1969 by the Charles Manson murder gang, and again eight years later when he was arrested for the statutory rape of the 13-year-old girl.

But few directors have laid bare their inner fantasies and fears like Polanski in films such as "Repulsion," "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant" -- films of disturbing brutality shot through with voyeurism and dark humor.

From early childhood when he escaped the Nazi holocaust in Poland, Polanski's life has appeared, like his movies, to hover precariously on the brink of tragedy.

Born Raymond Polanski to Polish-Jewish parents on August 18, 1933, he spent the first three years of his life in Paris before the family returned to Poland.

When the Germans sealed off the Jewish ghetto in Krakow in 1940, his father shouted to Roman to run and he escaped. His mother later died in an Auschwitz gas chamber.

His first full-length feature film after graduation, "Knife in the Water," won awards and, most important for Polanski, was his ticket to the West.

As his reputation grew -- first with "Repulsion," his study of a woman terrified by sex who becomes a psychotic murderer, and then with the absurdist masterpiece "Cul de Sac" -- Polanski developed a taste for the high life and beautiful women.

In 1974 Polanski had another major Hollywood success with "Chinatown," a stylish thriller starring Nicholson, but his private life stayed unsettled as he drifted between Paris, Rome and Los Angeles and embarked on numerous short-lived affairs.

In 2003, he won the Oscar for "The Pianist."

"I am widely regarded, I know, as an evil, profligate dwarf," Polanski wrote in his autobiography. "My friends -- and the women in my life -- know better."

[Ed Anger]

HA!

[Mr.Penguin]

Cant wait to see the so called "cultural elite" go nut over his arrest, demanding he should set free at once, becourse the Americans are nazis and the girl was a tart who deserved it...

Had it been a ordinary 44 year old man who had drug raped a 13 year old girl would the same people be calling for his balls to be cut of...

[The Brain]

Ghadafi was right.

[The Brain]

Cant wait to see the so called "cultural elite" go nut over his arrest, demanding he should set free at once, becourse the Americans are nazis and the girl was a tart who deserved it...

Had it been a ordinary 44 year old man who had drug raped a 13 year old girl would the same people be calling for his balls to be cut of...

Ironically the Languish soft-on-crime poster sympathy this week has already been spent on Susan Atkins. The bleeding heart liberals will get back to you next week.

[Mr.Penguin]

The Wikipedia- trolls are already on the case...

On 26 September 2009 Polanski was arrested after entering Switzerland, in relation to his outstanding 1978 US arrest warrant for the rape of Geimer. Polanski had hoped to attend the Zurich Film Festival to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.[40][41]

On 27 September 2009 Polanski, after being arrested and held in a maximum security prison located in Switzerlandeish mountains, has confided in Switzeris authorities about crimes unknown to the public that he has committed. As of today, it has been reported that Polanski received multiple beatings to the rectal area with multiple devices known as "penis" throughout the prison. Reports of Polanski being transferred to a Swedish Hospital in France are unfounded.[

[Razgovory]

Excellent

[Josephus]

Cant wait to see the so called "cultural elite" go nut over his arrest, demanding he should set free at once, becourse the Americans are nazis and the girl was a tart who deserved it...

Had it been a ordinary 44 year old man who had drug raped a 13 year old girl would the same people be calling for his balls to be cut of...

Ironically the Languish soft-on-crime poster sympathy this week has already been spent on Susan Atkins. The bleeding heart liberals will get back to you next week.

Yup. I'm not gonna take up this cause. I don't even like his movies. Although ironically the Susan Atkins case is sort of related to this. Funny.

[CountDeMoney]

drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl and having unlawful sex with her at a photographic shoot at Jack Nicholson's Hollywood home.

Man, Jack knows how to party.  Puts Charlie Sheen to shame.

[Syt]

The movie Thirteen taught me that Californian teens only think about drugs and casual sex, so I don't see the big fuzz, really.

[Syt]

drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl and having unlawful sex with her at a photographic shoot at Jack Nicholson's Hollywood home.

Man, Jack knows how to party.  Puts Charlie Sheen to shame.

Didn't Nicholson have sex with one of his daughter's friends?

[Neil]

I would be surprised if he actually got extradited.

Still, I'm all worn out on sex crimes.  I can't even pretend to be outraged.  Merely displeased.

[Neil]

Didn't Nicholson have sex with one of his daughter's friends?

I would be shocked if he hadn't.  It's Jack Nicholson.  He can score any chick he likes.

[Sahib]

I guess USA doesn't have more recent and serious crime to care about, as they seems to have spent a lot of time and effort to snatch him up   

[Neil]

I guess USA doesn't have more recent and serious crime to care about, as they seems to have spent a lot of time and effort to snatch him up 

Seems to me the Swiss did all the work.