Switzerland would have arrested film director Roman Polanski on earlier visits to the country if justice authorities had been aware of his presence, a Swiss minister said in an interview published Sunday. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said her department had only been aware of previous visits by Polanski, who owns a chalet in Swiss resort Gstaad, after the event. “This time we knew that he would be coming. After all, the organizers of the Zurich Film Festival had actively made it known,” Widmer-Schlumpf was quoted as saying by Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung. Prominent Swiss, including Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, have criticized the handling of the arrest and Polanski was stunned, according to his lawyer, because he was a regular visitor to Switzerland. “Switzerland is a constitutional state and Mr Polanski should always have counted on being disturbed on his earlier stays as well,” Widmer-Schlumpf said.
