Five hundred pages of files kept by the Polish police on Lech Walesa when he was leader of the striking Gdansk shipyard workers in the early 1980s have just gone up on the internet. Walesa - who went on to become president of Poland - put them there himself to confound those who have spread rumours that he was a police informer in the old days before Communism collapsed in Poland in 1989.

"I got sick and tired of the constant accusations, doubts and insinuations being peddled by these people and decided to publish these materials for all to see," he said. It is the most dramatic move yet in an argument that has been raging in Poland for months, over whether all the old police files should be made public so that everyone who spied on colleagues or neighbours for the secret police can be identified.