Former PM Mazowiecki to be buried on Sunday

Flags fly at half-mast in Warsaw in honour of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who died Monday morning aged 86: photo - PAP/Radek Pietruszka

The government announced on Monday evening that the service will be held, with state honours, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, beginning at 11.00 am.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who became prime minister of Poland after the fall of communism in September 1989, will be buried in his family's grave in Laski, to the west of Warsaw.

Flags on government buildings and the Presidential Palace are flying at half-mast in the capital in mourning to the Solidarity activist, imprisoned by the communists during martial law between 1981 and 1982, who held office as PM till December 1990.

"We say goodbye to a good man and a friend of many," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday afternoon as he signed a book of condolences to the late politician.

"We remember his remarkable calm, strength of spirit and wise eyes," Tusk, a fellow Solidarity activists said.

"He was one of the most prominent Polish politicians of the twentieth century, of that there can be no doubt," the prime minister added.

In a message sent to Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski, head of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso said that he wanted to pay tribute to "this great Pole and European, one of the founding fathers of the new Poland and re-united Europe".

"As first non-communist prime minister elected in partially free elections in 1989," Barroso continued, "Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the icon of the democratic transition in Central and Eastern Europe. He marked the end of an era only to engage into a new challenging project to re-unify Europe and lead Poland on the path towards accession to the European Union". (pg)