The Warsaw district military court has issued an arrest warrant for a Polish-born British woman over her role in the Stalinist show trials of the nineteen-fifties.

The woman, Helena Brus, was the chief military prosecutor in Poland at the time.

She's accused of organizing the unlawful arrest andexecution of a hero of the Polish wartime resistance, General Emil Fieldorf,who was hanged for allegedly killing Soviet soldiers after a one-day trial.

He was officially pardoned after the collapse of communism.

Mrs Brus formerly Helena Wolinskais seventy-nine and married to an Oxford University professor; she denies the charges.

The arrest warrant opens the way to extradition proceedings.