A lawyer and author of a book about the 40-year-old maid named Anna Goldi, Walter Hauser, has been a staunch campaigner to clear the woman's name, a correspondent for The Times of London reported from Vienna.

"We were the last to murder a 'witch', and we should be the first to pardon one," said Hauser. "The authorities must apologize for this historic injustice and take responsibility for an innocent victim of juridical persecution."

Material from local archives in the alpine town of Glarus indicate Goldi was having an affair with her employer, Dr. Johannes Tschudi, an influential judge and politician who apparently got her pregnant, Hauser said.

When the woman wanted to go public with the affair, historians claim Tschudi conspired to charge her for attempting to poison his two children by witchcraft.

An executioner with a sword cut off her head, making her the last woman to be executed in Europe for witchcraft, the report said.