TU-154 explosives claim “untrue” says military prosecutor

Ireneusz Szeląg: photo - PAP

This morning, the Rzeczpospolita daily claimed that a team of Polish forensic experts, who returned from Moscow to Poland two weeks ago, found traces of TNT and nitroglycerine on parts of the plane.

But military prosecutor Col. Ireneusz Szeląg said at a press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday that it is not true that traces of explosives were found by the Polish research team.

"Traces of explosives were also not found” either inside or on the outside of the aircraft, as has been claimed, he said.

Poland’s official report into the disaster that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others also found that no traces of explosives were found on the pane.

The so-called Miller Report, named after the then interior minister Jerzy Miller – which found that human error was the cause of the crash which killed all 96 on board the TU-154 plane, including President Lech Kaczynski - concluded that: “There was no evidence of explosives or detonation of aviation fuel” when the plane came down near Smolensk military airport on a foggy Saturday morning on the 10 April 2010.

On 1 April 2011, however, Poland’s Attorney General said that the Military Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw ruled out a terrorist attack as being the cause of one of Poland’s biggest peace-time disasters.

Moscow’s Center for Forensic Expertise also reported that their investigation had “not revealed the presence of explosives”.

The Rzeczpospolita daily has yet to explain which sources led them to believe there was explosves found on the plane, which added to conspiracy theories in Poland that the disaster was more than just human error. (pg)