A Polish-born pensioner accused of conducting Stalinist show trials in the 1950s is facing new charges from Poland, which wants to extradite her from the UK.

Helena Wolinska, 80, who is married to an Oxford history professor, was Poland's chief military prosecutor in the 1950s.

The military prosecutor's offices alleges she is responsible for the unlawful arrest and subsequent execution of General Emil Fieldorf, one of the country's leading World War II resistance heroes. She is also charged with illegally imprisoning the communist activist Zenon Kliszko.

The latest charges were announced by the spokesman for the military prosecutor's office, Captain Jerzy Kwiecinski.

She has been charged, in her absence, with the "illegal deprivation of the freedom" of Colonel Bernard Adamecki, he said.

Death sentence

He was head of the air department of the Main Command of the Polish Home Army (the non-communist resistance) during World War II.

The Rzeczpospolita newspaper says Adamecki, who became the commandant of the Air Technical School in Warsaw after the war, was arrested in November 1950 at Wolinska's instruction.

He was sentenced to death "for participation in a diversionary and spying organisation" and was executed by firing squad in August 1952.

Last month the prosecutor's office revealed that the UK had demanded "formal and legal" clarifications concerning the Polish application for the extradition of Ms Wolinska.

Capt Kwiecinski said: "The English (sic) are interested, for instance, why it is that a military court has jurisdiction in Wolinska's case."

Extradition request

According to Polish law, the Wolinska case must be run by a military prosecutor's office since she is a retired Polish Army lieutenant-colonel.

In December 1998 the Warsaw Military District Court issued an arrest warrant for Ms Wolinska after she refused to come to Poland for questioning about her activities in the 1950s.

Poland sent an application for Ms Wolinska's extradition to the UK in August last year.

The head of the Military District Prosecutor's Office had said earlier that the chances of Ms Wolinska being extradited to Poland were reduced by the fact that the statute of limitations for Stalinist crimes was not binding on the UK.

He said Ms Wolinska's British citizenship might also be a hindrance.

Trial questioned

Ms Wolinska, who faces up to 10 years in prison if extradited and convicted, says she is innocent and maintains that the case against her is political and anti-Semitic in character.

She says she cannot count on a fair trial in Poland.

General Fieldorf was commander-in-chief of the Kedyw, an anti-Nazi diversionary group which was part of the Polish National Army, then based in Britain.

After the war, the secret police of the pro-Soviet Polish communist regime accused General Fieldorf of having ordered the execution of Soviet resistance fighters, and he was hanged in 1953 after a one-day trial.