(CNN) -- Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a decades-old arrest warrant stemming from a sex charge in California, Swiss police said Sunday.



Roman Polanski attends a film premiere in Paris, France, in June 2009.



Polanski, 76, was taken into custody trying to enter Switzerland on Saturday, Zurich police said. A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was arrested upon arrival at the airport.



He has lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States and declined to appear in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Director for "The Pianist" in 2003.



The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. But he fled the United States before he could be sentenced, and U.S. authorities have had a warrant for his arrest since 1978.  Watch what happens now for Polanski »



Polanski was nominated for best director Oscars for "Tess" and "Chinatown," and for best writing for "Rosemary's Baby," which he also directed. He was en route to the Zurich Film Festival, which is holding a Polanski tribute this year, when he was arrested by Swiss authorities, the festival said.



A provisional arrest warrant was issued last week out of Los Angeles, California, after authorities learned Polanski was going to be in Switzerland, Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, told CNN on Sunday.



There have been repeated attempts to settle the case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski's refusal to return to attend hearings. Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who "drugged and raped a 13-year-old child."



The Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was put "in provisional detention." But whether he can be extradited to the United States "can be established only after the extradition process judicially has been finalised," a ministry spokesman said in an e-mail.



"It is possible to appeal at the federal penal court of justice against an arrest warrant in view to extradition as well as against an extradition decision," the spokesman wrote. "Their decisions can be taken further to the federal court of justice."



Gibbons said the extradition process will be determined in Switzerland, but said authorities are ready to move forward with Polanski's sentencing process, depending on what happens in Zurich.



Polanski was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and a sliver of a quaalude tablet and performing various sex acts, including intercourse, with her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house. He was 43 at the time.



Nicholson was not at home, but his girlfriend at the time, actress Anjelica Huston, was.



According to a probation report contained in the filing, Huston described the victim as "sullen."



"She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between -- could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing," Huston said.



She added that Polanski did not strike her as the type of man who would force himself on a young girl.



"I don't think he's a bad man," she said in the report. "I think he's an unhappy man."



Polanski pleaded guilty to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.



There have been repeated attempts to settle the case over the years, but the sticking point has always been Polanski's refusal to return to attend hearings.



Prosecutors have consistently argued that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who "drugged and raped a 13-year-old child."



Polanski's lawyers tried earlier this year to have the charges thrown out, but a Los Angeles judge rejected the request.



In doing so, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza left the door open to reconsider his ruling
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