Remains from the grave of Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk exhumed
SCND October 6, 2017
On October 5, 2017, the body of 41st victim of the Smolensk catastrophe was exhumed in Grodzisk Mazowiecki near Warsaw. The proceedings were confirmed by the National Prosecutor's Office. Unofficially, RMF FM radio reported that the body was exhumed from the grave of Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, the Pilot-in-Command of the governmental Tu-154M that went down in Smolensk.
“I confirm that another exhumation was performed today. Due to family request, we do not disclose any details. The body was transported to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Lublin,” said Ewa Bialik, spokeswoman for the National Prosecutor's Office.
According to the prosecutors’ plans, another 16 victims of the Smolensk disaster are to be exhumed by the end of 2017, and the remaining 26 victims in 2018.
At the beginning of April 2016, the Smolensk investigation was transferred from the liquidated Military Prosecutor's Office to the National Prosecutor's Office. Soon thereafter, in June 2016, prosecutors announced that it was necessary to carry out the exhumation of all 83 victims of the Smolensk disaster. Out of the total of 96 victims, exhumations of nine victims were carried out in the years 2011-2012 and four victims were cremated.
This decision was justified by errors in Russian medical records, the lack of photographic documentation, and the fact that Russia blocked the interrogation of the Russian experts who carried out the initial medical examinations of the victims immediately after their deaths.
Capt. Protasiuk, Polish Air Force
The systematic exhumation process began in mid-November 2016. President Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria were the first to be exhumed. By the end of December 2016, a total of 11 bodies were exhumed. After a two-month winter break, another phase of exhumation began in March 2017. By June, another 22 people were exhumed. After another two-months summer break, exhumations resumed in September 2017. Thus far eight bodies have been exhumed in the fall 2017.
The National Prosecutor's Office does not disclose details of the results of the exhumation. At the end of July, it was reported that thus far abnormalities had been found in 13 caskets, i.e. parts of different bodies were found in single caskets. In two instances the bodies were switched. These are not the only cases of this type because the 2011 - 2012 exhumations revealed that six bodies were buried in wrong graves. Irregularities were also reported in the coffin of President Lech Kaczynski.
A separate criminal investigation deals with the irregularities in the initial medical examinations of the Smolensk crash victims. This investigation is conducted by a team of prosecutors who work on the Smolensk catastrophe. Several witnesses have been interviewed in this investigation, including former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski and former Minister of Health and Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz.
Remigiusz Mus, the flight engineer on Yak-40 whose landing immediately preceded PLF 101 and whose testimony implicated the Russian flight controllers, died of suicide.
This rounds out the death of the entirety of key witnesses whose testimonies could prove that the flight controllers bore at least partial responsibility for the mysterious crash that killed the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others near Smolensk, Russia, on April 10, 2010.
Suicide. So says the Polish Prosecutors office under the administration of Donald Tusk, Bronislaw Komorowski, and the Civic Platform party (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) - the people who came out on top following the disaster of Flight PLF 101. The position of the Prosecutors office is that the autopsy indicated death by hanging with no defensive wounds and and alcohol level of one permille (.01%).
General Konstantin Anatolyevich Morev, chief of the Federal Security Services (FSB), successor to KGB, office in Tver, who interviewed the Russian flight controllers, died at the end of August 2011. His body was found in his office. The official cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound from his service revolver. Read more here
"Russian Image Management"
The trip to Smolensk was expected to highlight Russia finally admitting culpability in the massacre, after long having blamed it on the Germans, an atrocity they had tried to conceal for over 70 years.
As for the reception committee, it had different ideas. Putin wasn’t looking forward to such an occasion. Into this poisonous reception brew was President Kaczynski’s well-known public criticism of Moscow and Putin, a habit that has ended the lives of others within Russia – and abroad. A few discouraging Russian requirements – that Kaczynski could not attend in any official capacity – did not halt the Poles. Kaczynski would go anyway on non-official, “personal” business. To Russians, such a distinction would be meaningless, not lessening the possible international excoriation of such an event. A problem ripe for a modern, Russian solution: a tragic, ‘natural’ accident.
Political enemies of Colonel Vladimir Vladimirovitsch Putin are falling ill with mysterious illnesses. It usually happens to them after they escape from their homeland, hoping that nothing bad can happen to them in the West.
The Russian secret service is using various poisons to get rid of inconvenient people, just like during the Soviet times, with the exception that Putin's people have more refined means at their disposal than the assassins of the day sent by Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev. This happens to journalists in broad daylight, so that there is no doubt that anyone can get away scot-free with writing the truth about the atrocities of the Chechen War, or about any score-settling between the people in power.
It started as a possible case of food poisoning but within weeks turned into a grim spectacle of enormous political proportions: Aleksander Litvinenko, former member of the Russian secret service, died in his place of residence London last November, after having been poisoned with a radioactive substance [...] It is a wild tale full of conspiracies, assassination attempts and imputations. Litvinenko talks about his time with the secret service, about his experience in Chechnya, and in particular about the series of bomb attacks on Russian territory that led to the seizure of power by Vladimir Putin.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views the SmolenskCrashNews.com. All information is provided on an as-is basis, and all data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. The Smolensk Crash News DOT COM makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.