Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader who imposed martial law to crush the Solidarity movement only to hand over power less than a decade later, died aged 90 on Sunday following a long bout of illness, a military hospital in Warsaw said.

In public a stern, enigmatic figure in his trademark dark glasses, Jaruzelski's record defies easy judgment and still divides Poles almost a quarter century after the fall of communism.

Lech Walesa, who was detained by Jaruzelski as Solidarity leader but eventually succeeded him as president, described the communist as a tragic figure who should be judged only by God.