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Polish ambassador to US: Smolensk tragedy 'bigger' than JFK assasination

PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea 02.12.2016 10:27
The 2010 plane crash which killed Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 others in Smolensk, western Russia, was an “even bigger” tragedy than the assassination of JFK, the Polish ambassador to the US has said.
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org/CC0

Ambassador Piotr Wilczek spoke on Thursday during a Washington-DC screening of the recently-released Polish film "Smoleńsk" directed by Antoni Krauze.

The ambassador said that no one should be surprised that Poles still have questions about the events surrounding the presidential plane crash in 2010.

“Reiterating the official Russian theories which prevailed from the day of the disaster, some media insist that the military plane with 96 people on board [...] fell to the ground because of pilot error. But those who promote such a theory forget that pilot error is one of many theories, which have never been accompanied by the slightest hint of real evidence,” he said.

He added that the plane disaster “was a similar tragedy" to the 1963 death of US president John F. Kennedy, “and even bigger, because it was the death of many prominent Poles and leaders.”

He added that the case has not been shut because of, among other reasons, a lack of an independent international inquiry.

A commission was set up by Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in October 2015, to investigate the cause of the crash.

The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Polish President Lech Kaczyński, who died in the disaster.

PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.

A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has said that a video recording of a 2010 meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and then Polish PM Donald Tusk hours after the crash prove that an official Polish report was a direct copy of a “falsified” Russian report on the disaster. (rg)

Source: PAP

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