Swiss police detained Oscar winning film director Roman Polanski on a US warrant over three-decade-old charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl, a film festival's organisers said on Sunday.
The controversial 76-year-old director was arrested on Saturday after he arrived to receive a prize at the Zurich film festival, organisers said in a statement.
The organisers said they were "shocked and saddened" by the arrest and would indefinitely postpone awarding the prize, which he was to receive Sunday in honour of his film career.
Polanski, famed for films such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," fled the United States in 1978 before being sentenced for his guilty plea to a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.
A Los Angeles judge refused in May the fugitive director's bid to dismiss the case after Polanski, who lives in France, failed to appear in court.
Polanski's legal team argued that the film-maker's conviction should be annulled on the grounds of misconduct, claiming the late judge who heard his case in the 1970s had improperly colluded with prosecutors.
The challenge was made after the allegation of misconduct emerged in a documentary released last year "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."
Judge Peter Espinoza said this year that while he believed there had been "substantial misconduct" in the case, Polanski's attempts to dismiss the charges would not be heard as long as he remained a fugitive from justice.
Defence attorneys confirmed in court papers filed this week that Polanski had no intention of returning to the United States.
The woman named as the victim in the 1970s case had joined defense lawyers in urging the dismissal of the case against Polanski.
Born in France of Polish parents and raised in Poland, Polanski was arrested in California after the parents of the 13-year-old girl complained to police. He fled the United States after a plea agreement.
The charges against him were not dropped and Polanski never again set foot in the United States, not even to receive the 2003 Oscar awarded him for best director for "The Pianist."
He was out of the country when his second wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by members of the "Manson family" led by cult leader Charles Manson in Los Angeles in 1969.
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