Polish air crash investigators to publish report in spring: defence minister

Speaking to public television broadcaster TVP 1, Antoni Macierewicz said that the commission’s report on the April 10, 2010 disaster near Smolensk, western Russia, would present what he described as true evidence in the case.

According to Macierewicz, a previous panel of investigators, a state commission that examined the disaster when the country’s former government was in power, spread "falsified" evidence and issued an "untrue" report on the crash, which killed President Lech Kaczyński, his wife and dozens of top officials.

Macierewicz told TVP 1 that he had notified prosecutors about a possible crime committed by members of the previous state commission, which was headed by former Interior Minister Jerzy Miller.

Macierewicz has previously said that “prosecutors and the court” will determine whether some members of that commission were “responsible for attesting to untrue facts on at least four counts.”

Earlier this year, the new commission investigating the crash said the presidential plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion and that Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as the plane was approaching the runway of the Smolensk military airport in 2010.

The new commission to reinvestigate the crash was set up by the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in 2015.

The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Poland’s late President Lech Kaczyński.

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.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR, TVP Info