Jarosław Kaczyński, the chairman of Poland’s ruling party, has marked the 13th anniversary of the Smolensk air disaster that killed his twin brother, President Lech Kaczyński, by announcing that a request will soon be made for prosecutors to investigate it as a deliberate assassination.
He also suggested that Vladimir Putin should face the International Criminal Court over the crash.
Official Polish and Russian investigations found the 2010 crash, which killed 96 people, to have been an accident. However, Kaczyński and his Law and Justice (PiS) party claim that it was deliberately caused by Russia with some kind of complicity from the Polish ruling party of the time, now in opposition.
“Soon, a notification will be submitted [to prosecutors] about the likelihood of a crime having been committed under article 134 of the criminal code,” declared Kaczyński in a speech yesterday. That law punishes anyone who tries to assassinate the president of Poland with a prison sentence of 12 years to life.
Prezes #PiS J. #Kaczyński w #Warszawa: Chcemy złożyć zawiadomienie do prokuratury o popełnieniu przestępstwa z art. 134 KK, czyli zamordowania Prezydenta, bo takiego śledztwa polskie organy ścigania nie prowadzą. Wierzę, że znajdą się odważni prokuratorzy, którzy poprowadzą tę… pic.twitter.com/JqPFJxbUbL
— Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (@pisorgpl) April 16, 2023
“In the case of [war crimes in] Ukraine, the world wants Vladimir Putin to appear before the International Criminal Court,” continued Kaczyński, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “Unfortunately in the case of the Smolensk catastrophe, there is not such intensive action.”
“Smolensk was undoubtedly, as far as making the decision is concerned, Putin’s crime,” he added. “[But] the world wanted to forget, wanted to believe these nonsense stories [explaining the crash as an accident] and to this day still believes them.”
“Fully explaining and – as far as possible – punishing those responsible for the Smolensk crime, but also for the Smolensk coverup, is one of the conditions for our final victory, the victory of a Poland in which people have equal rights and where no one suffers from hunger,” declared Kaczyński.
Prezes #PiS J. #Kaczyński w #Warszawa: Walka Ukraińców zadziwia cały świat. Dużą pomoc Ukrainie udzieliła Polska, #USA i Wielka Brytania. W sprawie Ukrainy chce stawiać się W. #Putin przed Międzynarodowy Trybunał Karny – niestety w sprawie Katastrofy Smoleńskiej nie jest to tak… pic.twitter.com/s4OFXMqwNd
— Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (@pisorgpl) April 16, 2023
In a subsequent interview with PAP, PiS deputy leader Antoni Macierewicz said that the state committee he heads, which is tasked with re-investigating the crash, has prepared a request to prosecutors to launch proceedings under article 134 of the criminal code.
After coming to power in 2015, the PiS government launched new investigations into Smolensk. However, despite spending eight years and tens of millions of zloty on those inquiries, it still has not presented any conclusive evidence proving its claims that the crash was deliberately caused.
On the anniversary of the crash in 2021, Kaczyński admitted that the causes may never be explained. Last year, he claimed to have seen evidence proving the crash was an “attack decided at the highest level of the Kremlin”. But he added that it would be difficult to prove in court who was responsible.
Polish prosecutors and courts are seeking the arrest of Russian air traffic controllers involved in the crash. In 2019, Tomasz Arabski – chief of staff to then Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the time of the crash – was found guilty of negligence for his role in organising the presidential flight to Smolensk.
Smolensk was an “attack decided at the highest level of the Kremlin”, says Jarosław Kaczyński ahead of the 12th anniversary of the crash.
Donald Tusk's government then “covered up” the incident as part of a “macabre reconciliation with Russia”, he adds https://t.co/5ae0gHJj3B
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 4, 2022
During yesterday’s speech, Kaczyński told the audience that he “hopes that in a year it will be possible to say incomparably more” about the causes of the crash.
“Not because today we don’t know what happened. Because every reasonable person knows…We have to convince the rest of our nation,” he added.
An Ipsos poll in May last year found just over half of Poles (52%) believe that the Smolensk crash was an accident. That was down from 60% in 2016. Meanwhile, 36% believe that it was caused by a deliberate attack, up from 27% in 2016. Among PiS supporters, 78% believe it was an attack.
After Kaczyński’s speech yesterday, opposition figures accused him of using a national tragedy for political purposes.
“Thirteen years after the Smolensk catastrophe, Kaczyński wants to use it again in his election campaign,” tweeted opposition MP Mariusz Witczak, referring to this autumn’s parliamentary elections. “The PiS chairman has not finished dancing on the coffins. His soulless cynicism is shocking.”
“Prosecutors ruled out [that Smolensk was] an attack long ago,” wrote Radosław Sikorski, another leading opposition figure who was foreign minister at the time of the crash. “But [Kaczyński] can still squeeze some propaganda out of this tragedy. Scumbags.”
Co prawda prokuratura zamach dawno wykluczyła ale można z tej tragedii wycisnąć jeszcze trochę propagandy.
Kanalie. https://t.co/O5Y6fBHv8y— Radosław Sikorski MEP 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) April 17, 2023
Main image credit: Dawid Zuchowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
