A fee investigating the catastrophe accused Russia of bombing the airplane however by no means supplied proof
The Polish Protection Ministry has shut down an investigation right into a 2010 airplane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of Polish lawmakers and officers. The ministry accused the investigators of losing taxpayer cash to provide you with “lies” about Russia’s supposed involvement within the tragedy.
Kaczynski and his spouse have been amongst 96 individuals on board the Polish Air Drive Tu-154M that crashed exterior Smolensk in western Russia on April 10, 2010, whereas trying to land in thick fog. Official investigations by Polish and Russian authorities discovered no proof of foul play, with each groups confirming that the pilots approached the airport too low, inflicting them to strike timber earlier than reaching the runway.
Kaczynski was a member of the Regulation and Justice occasion, and when the occasion took energy in 2015, his twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, ordered an investigation into the crash, citing widespread Polish conspiracy theories blaming the incident on Moscow.
With the liberal Civic Platform again in energy, the investigation was shut down on Friday, Minister of State on the Protection Ministry Cezary Tomczyk introduced.
“The liquidation of the Smolensk fee is in progress,” he stated at a press convention, Poland’s Onet information web site reported.
“In the present day, December 15, is the tip of lies within the identify of the Polish state,” he declared. “That is the tip of spending a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of zlotys [Polish currency] on actions that don’t have anything to do with explaining the causes of the catastrophe, however have loads to do with politics.”
“This choice ought to have been made a very long time in the past,” he concluded.
The fee made quite a lot of outlandish accusations throughout its seven-year investigation. It claimed in 2020 that Russian air site visitors controllers directed the airplane into the timber, whereas a 2018 report by the fee claimed that Russian operatives planted explosives on the plane.
Neither accusation might be backed up by proof, but Kacyzinski nonetheless claimed final yr that the crash was deliberate “on the highest ranges of the Kremlin,” and that President Donald Tusk – whose Civic Platform occasion oversaw the preliminary investigation – “lined up” the incident as a part of a “macabre reconciliation with Russia.”
In a speech earlier this yr, Kacyzinski introduced that Polish prosecutors could be tasked with investigating the crash as an assassination, and prompt that Russian President Vladimir Putin ought to be charged by the Worldwide Felony Court docket for his alleged involvement. Regardless of repeated guarantees, the fee by no means launched its ultimate report on the incident.
You may share this story on social media:
Supply hyperlink