Forensic evidence proves Walentynowicz buried in wrong grave

Exhumation of Anna Walentynowicz: photo - PAP/Adam Warzawa

The confirmation follows autopsies carried out last week, after the exhumation of Walentyowicz and another female victim of the April 2010 plane crash, Teresa Walewska-Przyjalkowska.

It is understood that the coffins were incorrectly numbered before being flown back to Poland after the original autopsies in Russia.

Moscow has not yet commented officially on the discovery.

Last week, the Solidarity activist's son Janusz Walentynowicz signalled that indeed a mistake had been made.

“The person on whom the autopsy was conducted today (19 September) is not the the person I recognised in Moscow as my mother, it was someone completely different,” Janusz Walentynowicz told Radio Wroclaw.

The exhumations were ordered by the Military District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, so as to clarify “the doubts that have risen.”

Janusz Walentynowicz told the Polish Press agency today that he feels “bitterness, resentment and anger towards state institutions that such a situation came about.”

Some 96 people died in the crash near Smolensk, taking in the entire delegation of President Lech Kaczynski.

The delegation was due to take part in commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the WWII Katyn Massacre.

Three other victims of the crash have been exhumed over the last two years. These were two MPs from President Lech Kaczynski's former party (Law and Justice) - Przemyslaw Gosiewski and Zbigniew Wassermann, as well as Janusz Kurtyka, the former head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a state body charged with investigating crimes against Polish citizens.

Anna Walentynowicz was one if the iconic figures of the Solidarity Movement. It was her firing from the former Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk – on account of her participation in an illegal trade union – that prompted the now legendary strike led by Lech Walesa in August 1980. (nh)