Poland's last Communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski has died aged 90 after a long illness, Polish media say.

Gen Jaruzelski led Poland from 1981, when he declared martial law and ordered the arrest of the pro-democracy Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

But he lifted martial law two years later and after growing unrest was forced to negotiate with Solidarity in 1989.

He had been in ill health for some time.

Mr Walesa said that a "great man from a generation of betrayers has gone".

Gen Jaruzelski fought in a Polish unit of the Russian army during World War Two and rose up the military ranks after the war to become chief "political officer" of Poland's armed forces.
'Lesser evil'

He was defence minister at the time of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in which Polish soldiers took part.

He denied ordering the fatal shooting of dozens of shipyard workers in the northern cities of Gdansk and Gdynia in 1971, for which he was later put on trial. .


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