Thirty-one years after he was convicted of raping this thirteen-year old girl, director Roman Polanski was finally arrested last night in Switzerland, where he was to be honored at a Zurich film festival. The Daily Mail says

On arrival at Zurich Airport, police swooped on 76-year-old Polanski.

Polanski has been on the run from the U.S. since 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with teenager Samantha Geimer. Before [he could be] sentenced, he fled to Paris, where he has lived since. He has not set foot in the U.S. for 31 years.

Switzerland’s extradition treaty with the U.S., signed in 1990, means Polanski, a French citizen, may be flown to Los Angeles where he faces a long prison sentence.

For those of you who don’t know the details of his crime:

Roman Polanski was 44 when he conducted a private photo shoot with [the 13-year old girl] for the French edition of Vogue. Polanski performed various sex acts on her after giving her champagne and drugs.

Polanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy and lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14.

On February 1, 1978, while awaiting sentencing, he left the U.S. [for] France, where he held citizenship, beginning a 31-year fight by the U.S. authorities to bring the director to justice.

An extradition request filed by U.S. officials was denied by the French.

So in addition to harboring smelly cheeses and general disdain, France is also apparently a safe-haven for child rapists and therefore understandably outraged by his arrest:

French culture minister Frederic Mitterand said he was ‘dumbfounded’ by the filmmaker’s arrest.

Mr Mitterrand said he ‘strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.’

And yesterday his ministry said French President Nicolas Sarkozy was ‘following the case with great attention and shares the minister’s hope that the situation can be quickly resolved.’

Yes, poor, poor, Roman Polanski. His parents were killed at Auschwitz and his wife was murdered, so that apparently gives him license to pump eighth grade girls full of barbiturates and sodomize them in a hot tub. Like that old Levitical law says, “an eye for an eye.” I’m sure “an eye for a prepubescent asshole” still falls under the umbrella of the Torah.

Dita von Teese modeling her new WonderBra line because she’s not 13: