2024-10-24 21:19 update: 2024-10-25, 14:24
Photo PAP/Przemysław Piątkowski
The ministry's special team reviewing the Smolensk subcommission gave it an overall negative assessment, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said.
"The true purpose of the subcommission... was to confirm a single hypothesis about the occurrence of an explosion and dismiss any contradicting arguments, analyses," Kosiniak-Kamysz said during the Thursday presentation of the review conducted by a special team at the Ministry of National Defence.
"So, the objective was strictly defined from the start, not to explain the causes for the disaster, but to prove their own hypothesis," he added.
The ministry's special team assessed the work of a special subcommission that was formed in 2016 by the then defence minister, Antoni Macierewicz, to investigate the causes of the Smolensk air crash that killed the then Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of Poland's senior politicians and military leaders when the official aircraft they were travelling in crashed as it approached Smolensk airport in western Russia.
According to Kosiniak-Kamysz, the report proves that the strategic goal of the subcommission was to "create further division in the society and destroy national unity, spread lies and untruths."
Furthermore, he said, it concludes that the Smolensk subcommission cost the state treasury PLN 81 million (EUR 18.6 million) in total. Out of this amount, PLN 34.5 million (EUR 7.95 million) covered the costs of the subcommission itself, and the remaining PLN 47 million (EUR 10.8 million) was the value of irreversible aircraft damage caused by the investigation process.
Kosiniak-Kamysz mentioned numerous instances of wastefulness by the subcommission, including non-compliance with the law on public tenders, payment of large salaries without supervision, and contracting experts who did not have appropriate knowledge or skills.
Kosiniak-Kamysz emphasised that the team that was formed in January 2024 did not investigate the April 10, 2010 air crash and its causes as such, but focused on the review of the subcommission's activity that lasted from 2016 until its disbandment in 2023.
Kosiniak-Kamysz also mentioned a 790-page report that summarised the conclusions of the review. "The overall conclusion from this report concerns the operations of the subcommission and the team gave it a negative assessment in all the analysed aspects: economy of operations, legality, appropriateness, and diligence," he said.
He added that the report would be used as a basis for further action by law enforcement authorities, and that his ministry would prepare notifications of criminal activity to be submitted to prosecution.
During the same press conference, Cezary Tomczyk, a deputy defence minister, announced that the ministry would submit 41 such notifications to the public prosecutor’s office, of which 24 concerned the former chairman of the subcommission and former defence minister Antoni Macierewicz. The allegations include achieving private gains, failure to perform duties, misuse of powers, falsification, bribery and allowing unauthorised third-parties access to the subcommission.
Donald Tusk, the prime minister, commented on the review on the X platform.
"24 notification of a crime. Thus ends the architect of the Smolensk hell, a provocateur and a habitual liar. It was he, at the behest of Jaroslaw Kaczynski (the Law and Justice leader - PAP), who unleashed a political civil war that engulfed the entire country for many years. Crime and punishment," he wrote.
Macierewicz told the far-right broadcaster TV Republika that "the essence of the report was to protect Russian President Vladimir Putin and the policies of Tusk" through lies, disinformation and manipulation. He added that the special team violated the law by analysing the subcommission's materials without obtaining the court's approval. (PAP)
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