Head of probe says blast killed officials on Polish jet in 2010

Senior conservative politician Antoni Macierewicz was speaking as Poland on Wednesday marked the ninth anniversary of the plane crash in Russia—a disaster that is still a source of controversy and recriminations.

Macierewicz’s comments came a day after he said his commission had notified prosecutors that it suspected a team that probed the crash when Poland’s previous government was in power had falsified the truth, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

Macierewicz’s commission said it had analysed 2013 tests by a police forensic laboratory that revealed traces of explosives in 107 out of 215 samples taken from the crashed Polish plane.

Poland’s ruling conservatives have long challenged an official report into the causes of the disaster issued by the previous Civic Platform-led 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.

A new commission to probe the crash was set up by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in Poland in 2015. The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of the late President Lech Kaczyński.

The commission, headed by Macierewicz, said in January last year that the jet’s left wing was destroyed as a result of an explosion on board.

The commission added that the explosion had “several sources” on the plane.

In April 2017, the commission said that 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 they neared the runway.

(pk/gs)

Source: IAR