TU-154 wreck, Smolensk: photo - staszewski/Wikimedia Commons
“We hope the Foreign Ministry will intervene in the case of the scandalous video by National Geographic [which] presents only the Russian version of events,” Antoni Macierewicz, an MP for the Law and Justice (PiS) party told journalists on Wednesday.
Law and Justice want changes made to the documentary, Death of a President, which was broadcast in Poland this week to an audience of just under 2 million, a record for a cable TV broadcast.
“The government could decide to intervene, including taking legal action, if National Geographic does not make significant changes,” the MP said, whose party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the twin brother of the late President Lech Kaczynski, who died with 95 others when their TU-154 crashed in western Russia on 10 April 2012.
Macierewicz complained that the film makers at National Geographic Canada followed the course of events which led to the tragedy as laid out in official reports by both Russian and Polish investigations, which concluded the causes of the crash were a series of events and mistakes stemming from poor visibility as the plane approached the military airstrip near Smolensk.
Law and Justice's Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said many times since the tragedy that the crash was “more than just an accident”, claiming both Russian and Polish official reports covered up vital facts in the case.
A Polish lawyer based in Toronto, in Canada, Lidia Sokolowska-Cybart, has gone as far as to comparing the National Geographic film to “late post-stalinist propaganda”.
In December, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Ssikorski appealed for EU help in demanding Moscow return the wreck of the TU-154, which is still in Russia, back to Poland.
The Russian foreign ministry said, however, that the wreck can only be returned to Poland after legal investigations into the crash have been completed – an explanation which does not satisfy Law and Justice and their allies.
“We have documented facts, very disturbing facts, of [Russians] damaging the wreckage [of the talks TU-154] purposefully, days after the crash,” claims lawyer Lidia Sokolowska-Cybart on youtube.
“We know the wreckage was washed completely clean quite recently, before any Polish agencies were allowed to conduct any serious talks about getting this wreckage back to Poland,” she said.
Stefan Niesiolowski, a leading MP from the ruling Civic Platform party has defended the documentary, however.
Niesiolowski told Polish Radio that the film was “necessary and true” and said the Polish Smolensk report by former interior minister Jerzy Miller “cannot be called into question on any point”.
But MP Macierewicz continued his party's call yesterday for an international investigation into the disaster.
In December last year, the White House rejected the call to internationalise the investigation, with Phil Gordon, US Assistant Secretary of State for Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the White House, responding to a petition delivered to President Obama signed by 30,000.
“In response to your petition, we note that the Polish and Russian governments each conducted their own investigations. In conducting their investigations, Poland and Russia agreed to follow the protocols of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which establishes the standards and recommended practices for civil aviation accident investigations,” he said.
Now the Law and Justice party have called for EU involvement in the case.
“EU regulation and European Parliament legislation require the government to enable experts to investigate,” Antoni Macierewicz said, pointing to “EU Regulation 996/2010 on the investigation of accidents and incidents in civil aviation, which would allow the involvement of the European Aviation Safety Agency and experts from other Member States to conduct an investigation into the Smolensk crash." (pg)
source: PAP