A SHOCKED tutor at York St John University has revealed how one of the Polish victims of a plane crash in Russia was a former student.

Przemek Duklas, who is himself Polish and teaches English as a foreign language, said Vice Admiral Andrzej Karweta spent six weeks at the university in late 2006 learning English, prior to studying at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London.

“He lived with a host family not far from the centre,” he said. “We have these courses every year – it’s our contract with the Ministry of Defence.

“I realised he was my student when the pictures of the victims were published on the internet. I remember talking with him after classes over a cup of coffee. He was a very nice guy – very calm, balanced, a kind of ‘thinker’.”

The vice admiral was one of 96 people – including the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski – who were aboard a Polish government jet that crashed in heavy fog while trying to land in the Smolensk region of Russia last weekend.

They had been travelling to attend a memorial service for Polish military officers and others killed en masse by Stalin’s secret police at Katyn in 1940.

Mr Duklas, who lives in York, said the crash was “unbelievably saddening”.

He said: “It’s just so unbelievable and seems like a sickening trick.

“Those who died in the accident were to commemorate the anniversary of a mass murder committed by the Soviet authorities. About 22,000 Polish officers – POWs – were murdered in three places in Russia, the best-known one being Katyn.

“It was a murder which was denied for many years – neither the communist authorities in Poland nor the Russians wanted to admit it. It was the first time Russian authorities had openly admitted that the murder had taken place.

“This is as if Katyn took its victims for the second time,” Mr Duklas said.