Secret grave of Polish hero 'discovered'

The secret grave of General Emil August Fieldorf, one of Poland's national heroes, may have been found more than 50 years after he was executed by his own country's Stalinist regime.

Scientists and historians intend to examine a plot of land in a Warsaw cemetery to see if it contains a mass grave that might include the body of Gen Emil August Fieldorf, a Polish wartime commander hanged by the communist state in 1953.

If the grave is identified the authorities may carry out one of the biggest exhumations in the nation's history.

The possibility that Fieldorf's body, and those of others murdered by the regime, is in the cemetery was raised after historians at the Institute of National Memorial, the body charged with investigating communist crimes, found a note written by a gravedigger in the late 1950s.

It indicated that Fieldorf's remains may have been dumped in the grave after his execution. "I cannot say for certain we have found the grave of General Fieldorf but we have identified a plot where 248 murdered Polish patriots are," said the Polish historian Jacek Pawlowicz. If researches do find the general's remains, he could be given a state funeral.