10 April 2014
Polish MP claims in
report that Lech Kaczynski, the president of Poland, was assassinated by an
explosion on the plane
The Smolensk air
disaster that claimed the lives of the former president, his wife and 94
others, was caused by a mysterious explosion on board that ripped the aircraft
apart according to a Polish MP.
The claim was made in a
report that was published as Poland commemorated the fourth anniversary of the
plane crash that claimed the lives of President Lech Kaczynski and dozens from
the country's political, military and civil elite,
An official air-crash
investigation concluded the disaster was an accident caused by a number of
factors such as pilot error and thick fog enveloping Smolensk airport as the
Tupolev Tu-154 government plane tried to land at Smolensk airport in western
Russia on the morning of April 10, 2010.
But in a 200-page
report entitled "Four Year after Smolensk: How the President Died,"
Antoni Macierewicz, an MP from Law and Justice, a party founded by Lech
Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, claimed the plane was brought down by
an explosion.
Mr Macierewicz and Mr
Kaczynski have long maintained the president was assassinated, possibly by the
Russians, and the present Polish government was involved in a cover-up.
"Never in the
history of the world has a government and prosecutors strived so hard to block
access to the truth," Mr Macierewicz told reporters as he began the
report's presentation.
Donald Tusk, the Polish
prime minister who also lost colleagues at Smolensk, has always rebuffed any
accusations that his government was somehow involved in the disaster.
Citing expert witnesses
Mr Macierewicz said fragments of the wreckage showed signs of an explosion that
occurred shortly before the plane hit the ground. In a presentation on his
report the MP released photographs appearing to show sections of the aircraft
bent outwards, as if they had been subjected to a blast.
He also said the
scattering of the debris was consistent with a mid-air explosion rather than
impact with the ground.
The report may add some
momentum to the belief many Poles have that the Smolensk disaster was no
accident, but is unlikely to sway the view of the majority, who dismiss
conspiracy theories.
A recent opinion poll
for the TVN news network found that 61 per cent did not believe a bomb was
involved while 25 per cent believed the opposite.
Matthew Day
Warsaw
