By Adam Easton
BBC News, Warsaw
Poland's last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Russia's Lavrov contradicts Georgian rebel leader ...
US and Poland agree shield deal ... is due to go on trial for imposing martial law in 1981.
Eight other former officials will also be tried for the clampdown against the opposition Solidarity movement, during which dozens of people were killed.
Gen Jaruzelski, who is now 84 and in poor health, says he had to act to prevent a Soviet invasion of Poland.
If found guilty he faces up to 10 years in jail, but there is little public clamour to send him to prison.
'Lesser evil'
The trial in Warsaw marks the first time Poland has held its former communist leaders criminally responsible for imposing martial law.
Immediately after the fall of communism in 1989, the new Solidarity government rejected calls for political retribution.
But in recent years moves to bring the senior communist party leaders to account for martial law have hastened.
Gen Jaruzelski has always maintained he chose the lesser evil when he ordered tanks onto the snowbound city streets on that night in 1981.
If he had not acted against Solidarity, he says, Soviet troops would have.
According to surveys, many Poles believe him.
(BBC)
<< Back