Polish air crash victims buried in wrong graves

[AntiPAPunk]

Polish air crash victims buried in wrong graves

Bodies of victims of an air disaster that claimed the lives of 94 people including that of the president of Poland in 2010 were mixed up and buried in the wrong graves a new investigation has revealed.

The wreckage of a Polish government Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft that crashed near Smolensk airport, 10 April 2010 Photo: REUTERS

By Matthew Day, Warsaw

7:31AM BST 26 Sep 2012

DNA tests on two bodies exhumed last week have shown that the victims were muddled up before burial.

"We can now concentrate on satisfying Grandmother's last wish: to be laid beside her husband," said Piotr Walentynowicz, grandson of Anna Walentynowicz, a Solidarity heroine who was killed when the official flight of the Polish government slammed into the ground short of Smolensk airport two years ago killing all on board.

The exhumation had been prompted by doubts held by both Polish prosecutors and the families of the deceased over the veracity of the Russian autopsy reports, which appeared to contain inaccurate medical and physiological evidence.

The revelation over the mix up is likely to reheat a bitter controversy surrounding the circumstances of the crash and its investigation. Political opponents and some relatives of the deceased have accused Russia of causing the crash and instigating a cover-up.

"This is a scandalous situation," said Stefan Hambura, a lawyer representing the Walentynowicz family. "Tusk put his trust in the Russians and sided with their report into the crash." When asked who he thought was at fault, Mr Hambura said "you have to start with the prime minister".

Polish investigators are due to exhume and examine four more bodies.

"The prosecutor's office is looking into the issue of exchanging the bodies and is investigating the evidence from this angle," said Colonel Zbigniew Rzepa, a spokesman for the military prosecutor's office.

 

[Astra]

Families of Polish plane crash victims ask: Who did we bury?

WARSAW | Wed Sep 26, 2012 12:04pm EDT

(Reuters) - Relatives of the victims of a plane crash that killed Poland's president and 95 others in 2010 are facing the possibility that they buried strangers instead of their loved ones due to mistakes identifying remains.

Polish prosecutors said on Tuesday that the remains of Anna Walentynowicz, one of the people killed in the crash near the Russian city of Smolensk, were mixed up with those of another victim.

That revelation has raised questions about how many of the other bodies were wrongly identified after the crash - an event which traumatized the nation and still complicates relations with Poland's neighbor Russia.

Prosecutors have so far ordered that the remains of four victims should be exhumed to check if they are indeed the people their relatives thought they buried.

"I don't want to say that there will be a wave of exhumations just yet, but it won't end with just four," said Rafal Rogalski, a lawyer representing the relatives of several victims, including former President Lech Kaczynski.

"What has happened only underlines the approach of the Russian authorities and how reliable their documentation is. For now I can say that I am only certain (about the identity) of 10 or 11 bodies," he told Reuters.

Lawyers and relatives said on Wednesday they were considering requesting that many more bodies be unearthed.

The crash has particular poignancy for Poles because it evokes memories of the Katyn massacre, when Soviet secret police murdered an estimated 22,000 Poles in a forest during World War Two. The crash victims were travelling to Smolensk to take part in ceremonies to mark Katyn's fiftieth anniversary.

"ETERNAL INFAMY"

The remains of the Smolensk victims were examined by Russian investigators in the presence of Polish officials in Moscow before being flown back to Warsaw in metal coffins. They were then handed over to relatives for burial.

Opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the late president who died in the crash with other civilian and military officials, accused the government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk of failing to make sure Russian officials dealt properly with the remains.

"The people responsible for what happened with the exhumation should leave Polish politics and leave in eternal infamy," said Kaczynski, who has been accused of seeking to score political points from the disaster.

The Justice Minister was scheduled to discuss the exhumations at a parliamentary session on Thursday.

"The original sin was when Poland decided not to work with Russian investigators hand-in-hand immediately after the crash," said Stefan Hambura, an attorney for the family of Walentynowicz. A former Solidarity activist, her case sparked the review of how the remains were identified.

Russian investigators have blamed the crew of the Polish government Tu-154 for the crash, while a Polish report pointed the finger at Russian ground controllers for allowing the jet to land in heavy fog at a small airport near Smolensk.

Hambura told Reuters he had already asked military prosecutors to test the remains of Stefan Malak, a Smolensk victim, at the request of his brother.

Magdalena Merta, a widow of another victim, said she regretted not checking whether it really was the body of her husband that had lain in the coffin she kept in her home before the funeral.

"This was a chance to establish his identity," she told Polish television.

"I regret that I did not stand up to my family in this matter, but they feared that opening it would have been the last thing I did in my life."

(Additional reporting by Pawel Sobczak; Editing by Andrew Osborn)