Academy award-winning film director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland over a U.S. charge of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Reuters reports:
Film director Roman Polanski, arrested in Switzerland over a U.S. charge of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, will fight extradition to the United States, his lawyer said on Monday. Polanski, 76, who has dual French and Polish citizenship, was detained on Saturday after arriving to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. "He is in fighting mood and determined to defend himself," Herve Temime, Polanski's lawyer, told France Info radio, adding his client was stunned by the arrest as he was a regular visitor to Switzerland, with a chalet at the ski resort of Gstaad. "We have begun by requesting his release, which should be done today in principle," Temime said. "There is no reason in law, or regarding the facts or in terms of the most basic justice to keep Roman Polanski a single day in prison." Polanski was initially arrested in the United States in 1977 and charged with giving drugs and alcohol to a minor, Samantha Geimer, and having unlawful sex with her. Geimer of Hawaii has since said Polanski should not face any jail time. READ MORE

Roman Polanski's victim Samantha Geimer, now 45, 'got over it long ago'

New York Daily News reports:
Roman Polanski's most compelling defender is the woman he raped at Jack Nicholson's house when she was just 13. Now 45, Samantha Geimer is a mother of three who lives quietly in Hawaii and works as a bookkeeper. In January, Geimer, who publicly forgave Polanski in 1997, filed a formal request that Los Angeles prosecutors drop the charges against him. "I have survived, indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr. Polanski may have caused me as a child," she said at the time. "I got over it a long time ago." Geimer said Polanski had paid, and she wanted to move on and stop reliving the details of the assault every time he made headlines. READ MORE

Roamn Polanski to fight extradition

CBC reports:
The French lawyer for Roman Polanski says the director will fight a request for his extradition from Switzerland to the United States to face justice in a 32-year-old sex case. Herve Temime said Polanski has "refused the extradition request" and that a Swiss lawyer for the 76-year-old director will file a motion for his release from Swiss custody. Temime said in an email statement Monday that the U.S. extradition request was "illegal." Earlier Monday, officials and entertainment world figures in France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and pressed U.S. officials all the way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the case. READ MORE