Four Russian soldiers are accused of stealing from the bank account of a victim of the April 10 air crash in which Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others died, a Polish prosecutor said yesterday.

"One hour and 20 minutes after the catastrophe, the first fraudulent withdrawal was made using one of two bank cards belonging to Andrzej Przewoznik," Monika Lewandowska, spokesman for the Warsaw regional prosecutor's office, said.

Mr Przewoznik, who headed Poland's national war memorial committee, was part of the delegation that was killed en route to Katyn in Russia for a ceremony marking the 1940 massacre of thousands of Polish army officers at the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. "During the three days after the catastrophe, from April 10 to 12, there were a total 11 withdrawals for the total sum of 6,000 zloty (€1,445)," Ms Lewandowska said.

Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras said yesterday that the Russian soldiers suspected of the fraud had been arrested.

"The authors of this ignoble act have already been arrested in Russia," Mr Gras said.

"They are four Russian soldiers, not officials from the Russian anti-riot militia as indicated by error on Sunday," he added. "I made this error as I thought that only Russian anti-riot militiamen were at the crash site, but other units were also there," Mr Gras said.