Polanski Arrested In Switzerland
Maybe Mohammar Gaddafi was write about all the loony things he’s been saying lately about Switzerland: the country, or rather the Zurich police, has taken into custody Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski. He had traveled to Zurich to collect an award from the city’s film festival. The festival organisers did not give details of the arrest, but it is believed to be over a 31-year-old US arrest warrant. The director fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl (who has long since forgiven him). I have spent time with Polanski twice: once on a magical moonlit night in Venice where the director took me and a few other Venice Film Festival attendees to a nightclub; and other was an interview I did with him for the New York Times about the Polish director Andrzej Wajda. Both occasions were among the highlights of my life. If Switzerland extradites Polanski to the U.S. it will be an absolute scandal.
