Roman Polanski arrested in Switzerland

Swiss police detained Roman Polanski on a US warrant over three-decade-old charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Swiss police detained Oscar winning 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 Sunday.

The controversial 76-year-old director was arrested on Saturday as he arrived in the country to receive a special award at the Zurich film festival, organisers said in a statement.

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. He has never returned.

Declaring themselves "shocked and saddened" by the arrest, the Zurich organisers said they would indefinitely postpone the award, which was to be given Sunday in honour of Polanski's career.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand said he was also shocked by the arrest of the French-Polish film-maker, who lives in Paris, and had discussed the matter with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mitterand "learned with astonishment about the process launched against Roman Polanski, an internationally renowned film director and French citizen currently held in Switzerland," his ministry said in statement.

The minister spoke with Sarkozy, "who is following the matter with great attention and shares the hope ... of a quick resolution to the situation," the statement said.

"Without wanting to interfere in a very old judicial process ... (I) regret in the strongest way that a new ordeal has been inflicted on someone who has gone through so many," Mitterand said.

A Los Angeles judge refused in May the fugitive director's bid to dismiss the unlawful sex case after Polanski failed to appear in court.

Polanski's legal team argued that the conviction should be annulled because the judge who heard his case in the 1970s had improperly colluded with prosecutors. The judge has since died.

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 has 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.