Polish FM: We're looking for more clues to Smolensk tragedy

Minister Witold Waszczykowski said he has found documents showing procedures at the foreign ministry before and after the crash.

“We are looking further,” Waszczykowski told the public TVP broadcaster on Monday, marking the monthly anniversary of the 10 April 2010 crash.

Members of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland have commemorated the crash on the 10th of every month. The tragedy killed President Lech Kaczyński, twin of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

Waszczykowski said on Monday that “many documents” have been found at the ministry which relate to the way officials of the then-government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacted to the crash and conducted the ensuing investigation.

Waszczykowski said that some of the documents could also point to how Polish authorities conducted their internal policies.

“I found documents which showed how Poland's national interests and security were treated, and used instrumentally, between 2008 up to the Smolensk catastrophe [in 2010],” Waszczykowski said.

He added that the documents also indicate how the then-authorities “wanted to separate Lech Kaczyński from politics, from [having an] impact on Polish foreign and security policy”.

Waszczykowski said that the ministry is working on “recovering deleted emails from mobile phones used by ministry employees”, adding that all of the new evidence “will be revealed”.

Last week, the Gazeta Polska Codziennie daily reported that Poland’s foreign ministry under its previous head Radosław Sikorski, did not ask for international help in probing the 2010 crash.

Waszczykowski told the paper that no Polish diplomatic missions, including those in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Italy, possess documents confirming that Poland sought such help.

“Verbal reports that I received from foreign ministry staff indicate that Sikorski already on 10 April 2010 forbade research and legal work regarding this, justifying the decision [by saying] that the case had been taken over by the Prime Minister’s Office and therefore the Foreign Ministry would not conduct any legal analysis on this topic,” Waszczykowski was quoted as saying. (rg)