Piotr Walentynowicz (L)and laywer Stefan Hambura (R) speaking on Wednesday at a session of the parliamentary group on the causes of the Smolensk disaster PAP/Tomasz Gzell
Exhumations were initially carried out in September 2012, proving that another victim of the April 2010 air disaster, Teresa Walewska-Przyjalkowska, had been mistakenly buried in a grave designated for Walentynowicz in Gdansk.
Forensic tests confirmed that the remains interred in Walewska-Przyjalkowska's Warsaw grave were those of Walentynowicz. The burials were then carried out for a second time.
However, during a session of a parliamentary group concerning the air disaster on Wednesday, the Solidarity activist's grandson Piotr Walentynowicz claimed there were gaping holes in the original Russian documentation.
Walentynowicz said that of all the records referring to the state of female victims' remains following the crash, there was none that appeared to refer to his grandmother.
“Prosecutors have enabled us to examine all the volumes of records of the photographic and medical documentation concerning female victims... and there is not a single volume that corresponds to our grandmother,” he said.
Lawyer Stefan Hambura said that owing to this, “it may be necessary to request another exhumation in Gdansk.”
Meanwhile, Janusz Wojcik, a spokesman for Poland's Military Prosecutor's Office, has said that there is “no doubt” that Anna Walentyowicz's remains were laid to rest in Gdansk, following September's exhumations, citing DNA tests carried out by two independent academic institutions.
Last year, Attorney General Andrzej Seremet claimed that the initial mistake had been made by Walentynowicz's family, who had incorrectly identified her remains in Russia, immediately after the crash.
In October 2012, there was further embarrassment after it emerged that the last president of the government-in-exile in London, Ryszard Kaczorowski, had also been buried in the wrong place (he had been identified by a member of staff at the foreign ministry).
That month, Dr Viktor Kolkutin, the Russian doctor in charge of the identifications of victims, claimed that his team's work could not be held responsible.
He said that relatives and acquaintances of the crash victims were “in shock” during the identification process, and that almost a third of the 96 victims were not easily recognisable.
Anna Walentynowicz was one if the iconic figures of the Solidarity Movement. It was her dismissal 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)
Source: PAP