RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE AIR CRASH
ARTUR STELMASIAK
Initially Miller’s report was supposed to be obliging also for prosecution. However, it turned out to be such a big dud
The Smoleńsk catastrophe is the biggest and the most prestigious investigation in the history of the Polish administration of justice. So, no wonder that the humble structures of the military prosecution are often agitated by political conflicts. One can only recall the matter of the dismissal of the prosecutor Marek Pasionek, dismissal of gen. Krzysztof Parulski, wrong burials of the air crash casualties, complicated and ambiguous measurements of the Smoleńsk birch or, finally, convoluted explanation thattrinitrotoluene is not trinitrotoluene.
– Although I do not excuse these mistakes, in contrary to Miller’s commission, prosecution is trying to investigate something – says the lawyer Małgorzata Wasserman to the weekly ‘Sunday’, daughter of Zbigniew Wassermann who was killed at Smoleńsk.
A draft of a hypothesis
On the example of Miller’s commission it is seen that its many findings are based on pure speculations and more or less probable guesses. Even recently dr. Maciej Lasek has been distancing himself from his findings. He says that the report will probably be corrected, when the team of proficient prosecutors will finish their work.
During a parliamentary meeting of the team for the Smoleńsk air crash professor Marek Żylicz (also a member of Miller’s commission) said even more, that its findings are only ‘a draft of a hypothesis’. – Initially the report was supposed to be accepted as prosecutors’ findings – reminds the lawyer Wassermann. – Only when prosecutors saw its crafted results, they came to a conclusion that investigations had to be begun from the beginning again.
For, prosecutors must follow procedures and the binding law. Otherwise, they may undergo disciplinary or even punitive responsibility for their neglects. What is more, the investigation is being controlled by proxies of families, who have an access to the acts of the case and a possibility of submitting evidence applications. – We are fighting against the so-called sweeping many matter under a carpet – says the lawyer Piotr Pszczółkowski to the weekly ‘Sunday’, who is a proxy for, among the others, the family of the President of the Polish Republic Lech Kaczyński.
Investigation in the matter of the investigation
A list of neglects of prosecutors is very long. An investigation is being carried out about one of them. It is a neglect of an autopsy, which resulted in, among the others, a wrong burial of the casualties. – There would have not been such a proceeding if prosecution had not blocked evidence applications for hearing the colonel Ireneusz Szeląg and gen. Krzysztof Parulski. For two years we were not able to find out what particular actions had been done on 10 and 11 April in the place of the air crash – explained the lawyer Piotr Pszczółkowski in the Seym.
The investigation about a possibility of committing a crime of cheating and neglecting duties by prosecutors was started in last October. There has not been any autopsies carried out it till now and it was explained with the fact that prosecution had made a request to the Russians for legal help in this issue. However, Russian activities were ended on 11 April and a Polish letter got to Moscow only two days later. – So, what kind of legal help are they talking about? – wonders the lawyer Pszczółkowski.
Another premise pointed out by lawyers says that carrying out an autopsy was the Polish raison d’etat at that time. In April 2010 prosecutors had to assume all possible circumstances of the catastrophe causes. – At that time there was no reason to assume that the air crash of Tu-154 was not a deliberate action of the state services, to which we had entrusted the investigation of this catastrophe – explains the lawyer Pszczółkowski. – Therefore, the duty of the prosecutors was acting according to the raison d’etat, not assigning everything onto the Russian party.
Accusations towards the government?
In the last months a part of the investigation unexpectedly turned round by 180 degrees. When the court acknowledged a complaint of the lawyer Pszczółkowski about the decisions of the prosecution in Warsaw-Praque, the situation changed diametrically. The investigation concerning the civic organization of the flight is begun again. And the status of the victims will be given to all families of casualties. – It is a very important decision because nobody has had any consequences of wrong preparation of this tragic flight – explains the proxy of the family of Lech Kaczyński.
The court defined clearly who had been an organizer of the president’s delegation. It mentioned, among the others: the Office of the Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs Ministry and the National Protection Security which belongs to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. 20 misconducts of the National Protection Security were proved. – It means that the most important person in the country was not practically protected. What is more, after the catastrophe the chief of the National Protection Security got another general’s star to the request of Miller – explains the lawyer Pszczółkowski. The annulment of the decision about cancellation of the proceeding about the supervision over the National Protection Security opens possibilities of making allegations against the most important people in the country.
Everything points to the fact that Tomasz Arabski is not going to avoid responsibility for bad preparation of the visit, who has been promoted into the post of an ambassador in Spain recently. The preparations for the visit are the only thread in this investigation, which can be carried out on the basis of available evidences and free hearing of witnesses. So, there is a chance that we will get to know secret findings of Donald Tusk with Vladimir Putin at overnight of 10 and 11 April.
For the political order
It turns out that the biggest investigation in the history of the Polish administration of justice is full of defects and misconducts. – It seems to me that the catastrophe was treated like a theft of a bike from a garage – says the lawyer Wassermann. – I sometimes compare it to an ordinary work of ordinary policemen in Poland. If they had not secured the place of the air crash or the crime, then we would have been fired from work disciplinarily. These are normal rules of proceeding.
Whereas, after the catastrophe the most important evidences were not secured. It turned out that in the acts of the matter there are no measurements of the altitude, at which the birch broke off. The wreckage was not investigated and the pyrotechnical analysis was released on the basis of a shoe and an umbrella. – It is good that the prosecution has got down to work at last. However, gathering the key evidences two years after the catastrophe is not anything normal – says , Bartosz Kownacki to the ‘Sunday’, the lawyer and the proxy of a few families and the MP of the Law and Justice party.
– One can only recall the words of the prosecutor Andrzej Seremeta who denied the thesis of the assassination, although no pyrotechnical investigations of the wreckage had not been done. His statement did not result from the gathered evidences, but it was not a respond to the political order - thinks the lawyer Małgorzata Wassermann.
A report from the prosecution
The carried out investigations are revealing fuller and fuller picture of the Smoleńsk catastrophe. At present the prosecution is expecting, among the others, the results of the investigation of samples of TNT taken from the wreckage and genetic investigation of the birch and comparing it to its wood chips found on the left wing of the airplane. Beside it, a phonoscopic analysis of talks recording from the Smoleńsk control tower and the board of Jaka-40 is being done. Experts from the prosecution ordered the ATM company to do another analysis of the flight trajectory of the so-called Polish black box. – The data, which Miller’s commission had, turned out to be unbelievable – explains the lawyer Bartosz Kownacki.
Thanks to the pressures of lawyers of families, it was decided that the investigation had been carried out in the wrong way at the beginning of the proceeding. – The light in a tunnel is the fact that a lot of these actions are being done by the prosecution for the order of experts – says the lawyer Kownacki. – An intermediary pressure are also findings of the team of experts of Antoni Macierewicz. The prosecution began compete with them - adds the lawyer Wassermann.
Will the opinion of the prosecution be better than the report of Miller’s commission? – It is not going to be difficult. It is practically impossible to craft a worse document – answers the lawyer Kownacki. The analysis of experts is going to be much more detailed. It is going to answer the questions which were missing in Miller’s report and MAK, what was happening with the airplane in the last phase of the flight.
However, it does not mean that all doubts will be dispelled. A part of the evidence material was irreversibly missed. Therefore, the opinion of experts from the prosecution may be burdened with a mistake or will be incomplete.
Experts who were investigation the wreckage of the tupolew last year, have serious doubts whether the wreckage of the airplane were not stolen from the plate of the Smoleńsk airport. – I think that there are much less of them than in the second half of the year 2010. I know reports of witnesses who said that the wreckage elements could be bought from people responsible for their protection – emphasizes the lawyer Kownacki.
(AA)
"Niedziela" 15/2013