'No traces of explosives' on Smolensk disaster wreck

Smolensk plane wreckage where it came down in woodland near military airport, april 2010: photo - Wikimedia Commons CC / Serge Serebro

“Explosive materials were not found on parts of the plane wreckage,” Colonel Ireneusz Szelag confirmed at a press conference on Thursday morning.

“Neither were molecules characteristic of explosive material found during the research,” he added.

Szelag specified that all in all some 254 samples were taken from the site in west Russia last December. As many as 134 were taken from the wreck itself, and another 124 from the vicinity of the disaster.

The samples were tested by the Central Police Laboratory in Warsaw.

“Special devices were purchased for the purposes of carrying out the tests,” Szelag noted.

In October, the chief editor of national daily Rzeczpospolita was dismissed after the paper ran a front page story claiming that traces of TNT had been found on the wreckage.

Prosecutors denied the claim that very morning, but not before Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of conservative opposition party Law and Justice, held a press conference describing the disaster as “an unprecedented crime" amounting to the "murder" of 96 people.

Kaczynski's twin brother, former President Lech Kaczynski had led the visit to Smolensk, which was timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the WWII Katyn war crime.

Szelag reiterated today what he stated following the October outcry, acknowledging that on-site detectors had initially indicated similar structures to "high-energy" compounds found in explosives. Nevertheless, he insists that many non-explosive substances can trigger such alerts, stressing that subsequent laboratory tests were negative for TNT and other similar materials.

Meanwhile, in spite of repeated requests from the Polish government, Moscow has declined to return the wreck, stating that its official investigation into the disaster must be completed before the remnants can be handed over. (nh)