Jaroslaw Kaczynski at press conference, Wednesday; photo - PAP/Bartłomiej Zborowski
An opinion poll published this morning, however, finds that the Polish report into the Smolensk tragedy was the most believable of all the investigations into the disaster on 10 April in western Russia last year.
Leader of the Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, gave his first reaction to the Polish report yesterday into the causes of last year's Smolensk plane crash - which killed his twin brother President Lech Kaczynski - concluding that the document has "many short comings".
"There is a lack of information about the exact details that took place just before the start of the flight [on 10 April last year]. These missing details include the entire procedure related to sorting out the formation of the crew that would accompany the President. His crew had been changed from the one defined beforehand," Kaczynski told reporters.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who set up the Law and Justice party with his twin brother ten years ago, said that the government's decision to split the visits to the 1940 Katyn memorial ceremonies in two - with Prime Minister Donald Tusk travelling three days before the president for an official event accompanied by Prime Minister Putin - resultded in President Kaczynski's crew being downgraded.
"The president got the poorer of the two crews," Kaczynski said after the report released last Friday by Interior Minister Jerzy Miller criticsed many aspects of the crews training and preperation for the doomed flight on 10 April.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski blames the political "war against the president" for this downgrading by the government of Lech Kaczynski's security arrangments and this was a prime factor leading to the tragic events that led the plane to crash killing all 96 on board.
Kaczynski also said that Minister Miller's report failed to give "explanations about the many anomalies in the functionality of the [Russian TU-154] aircraft," following its servuice by Russians earlier last year.
He argued however that the pilots were “driven into a situation from which there was no way out,” and it is not true that their skills were insufficient.
The Law and Justice leader also pledged to raise the matter on the international scene.
“We will strive to bring this matter to the attention of not only Polish but also world public opinion.”
In his opinion, the Russian version of the causes of the 2010 Smolensk air crash, is “extremely harmful to Poland.”
“We must ask why, in the situation when the [Smolensk] airport does not meet the minimum [requirements] and when one plane had almost crashed there before, the airport was not closed. To say that it was impossible because it was a foreign flight and they [the Russians] had no such right is completely incredible …,” said the Law and Justice leader.
He added that Polish pilots were misled by Russian air controllers.
“The words 'the runway is free' were interpreted by pilots as a command to land. And before that they heard “continue landing” – as it was finally properly translated.”
“Without such actions by the Russians, the catastrophe would surely have been avoided,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski said.
Poll
Meanwhile, a survey by SMG / KRC finds that 47 percent of those polled think that the report by Poland's investigative team is "closer to the truth" than the Russian report released last year, and the report by Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, which blamed Polish government and Russian failures for the disaster.
Only one-in-five thought Law and Justice's report, written by Antoni Macerewicz was correct in its findings, with just six percent thinking that the conclusions of the Russian Interstate Avciation Committee's report were closer to the truth.
The findings of the SMG/KRC poll differ from those by the Homo Homini institute, taken directly after the Polish report was released last Fridat that found alomost half of Poles thought that it was incomplete in its conclusions. (pg/mj)