Director Roman Polanski taken into custody by Swiss police

(NECN/APTV) – Film director Roman Polanski has been taken into custody by Swiss police on a 31-year-old US arrest warrant, organizers of the Zurich Film Festival said on Sunday. The organizers said in a statement that Polanski was detained by police Saturday in relation to a 1978 US request. No further details were given, and Zurich police couldn’t immediately confirm the information. Polanski fled the United States in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. The 76-year-old director of such classic films as “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’ s Baby” recently sought dismissal of his case on grounds of misconduct by the now-deceased judge who had arranged a plea bargain and then reneged on it. Polanski has lived for the past three decades in France, where his career has continued to flourish. He received a directing Oscar in absentia for the 2002 movie “The Pianist.” Festival organizers said Polanski traveled to Switzerland to receive an award for his lifetime of work as a director. They said Polanski’s detention had caused “shock and dismay”, but that they would go ahead with Sunday’s planned retrospective of the director’s work. The following video and story is from APTV.