Smolensk disaster victim buried in wrong grave 'gigantic scandal' says opposition leader

Jaroslaw Kaczynski: photo - PAP/Radek Pietruszka

“Above all, I am thinking about the confirmation of what is, in my opinion – and this has been known for a very long time – a gigantic scandal as regards the behaviour of the Russians, the behaviour of the Polish authorities, and the deceiving of public opinion,” he told public television station TVP1 on Tuesday night.

Kaczynski's remarks came just hours after Poland's Supreme Military Prosecutor's Office revealed that in the light of a second autopsy, it could be confirmed that Solidarity legend Anna Walentynowicz had been buried in the wrong grave in 2010.

The Law and Justice leader stated that he does not have any doubts about whether his twin brother, the late President Lech Kaczynski, was interred as intended at Krakow's Wawel Catedral.

However, he claimed that it was “scandalous” and “breaking rules of criminal procedure” that the bodies of the 96 crash victims did not undergo a second autopsy immediately after the coffins were brought back from Russia, in April 2010.

He also referred to former health minister Ewa Kopacz's claims that all human remains had been genetically tested after the crash.

“It all turned out to be untrue, and in the end there certainly should be consequences,” he said.

Ewa Kopacz, now speaker of the lower house of parliament, was in Moscow shortly after the disaster on 10 April 2010.

Kopacz said, Wednesday morning, that she was not present when bodies of the dead were identified.

“I was not at the identification of Walentynowicz," she stated.

She said that her role in Moscow at that time was looking after the families of the victims. (nh/pg)