Poland closer to the truth about Smolensk: ruling party leader
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
11.09.2017 08:30
The leader of Poland's ruling party has said that the truth behind the plane crash which killed his twin brother, then-President Lech Kaczyński, exactly 89 months ago is “closer”.
Jarosław Kaczyński. Photo: PAP/Bartłomiej Zborowski
Law and Justice party leader Jarosław Kaczyński spoke at a monthly gathering commemorating Lech Kaczyński and the 95 other victims of the 2010 Polish plane crash in Smolensk, western Russia.
Meanwhile, a counter-rally was held nearby and between ten and 20 people were written up by police, who claim they disrupted a legal public gathering.
Jarosław Kaczyński on Sunday said the monthly marches had “brought us closer to the moment when monuments will be erected, when the truth will be explained”.
Russia has reneged on a deal for a monument to the crash victims to be built in Smolensk, saying the design was too big, despite earlier agreeing to a project.
Moscow is also yet to hand over the wreck of the plane, despite repeated requests from Warsaw, while Polish exhumations of the remains of the crash victims have found significant mistakes.
About half of the coffins opened in a new Polish investigation into the crash had remains mixed up, with parts of as many as eight different people found in a single coffin, including parts of two other people buried with Lech Kaczyński, and two full sets of remains switched.
The ruling party set up a new commission into the crash which earlier this year said the Polish plane was “probably brought down by a mid-air explosion” and that air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as the presidential plane was approaching the runway of the Smolensk military airport.
The Polish plane crashed in Smolensk, western Russia, on 10 April 2010, killing all 96 on board including then-President Lech Kaczyński.
Law and Justice 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.
Poland and Russia in 2011 agreed to build a monument to the victims in Smolensk, but those plans stalled after Moscow said the design was too big. (vb/pk)
Source: IAR, PAP