The Court is considering deposing former Prime Minister Donald Tusk and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski about their role in the Smolensk Crash
Published: August 30, 2016
Having avoided the court for a considerable period of time, Tomasz Arabski, the head of Chancellery in the Prime Minister Tusk’s office, finally appeared in court. He is charged with negligence during the organization of the tragic flight to Smolensk on April 10, 2010. Stefan Hambura, attorney for some of the victims’ families, has made a request that Donald Tusk and Radosław Sikorski also appear in court to testify about the Smolensk crash.
Arabski, who was charged by the District Court in Warsaw, pleaded not guilty. The court proceedings against Arabski, who was Donald Tusk’s right hand man at the time of the crash, and four other individuals employed by the Chancellery and the Polish Embassy in Moscow at the time of the crash, are the result of a private lawsuit filed on behalf of several families of the Smolensk victims. During his appearance in Court, Arabski refused to answer any questions and quickly left the Court.
The head of Chancellery denied that he had any involvement in the organization of the fatal flight, arranged for President Lech Kaczyński to attend the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre on April 10, 2010. Arabski claimed that he was only responsible for arranging Donald Tusk’s flight to Smolensk on April 7, 2010, and had nothing to do with the President’s flight on April 10, 2010. “There was never a question of separating the two visits, as they were never treated as one. It was made up by politically-motivated journalists, who are aggressive and unrealistic,” Arabski argued in the court. He also said that he was not responsible for preparing the Smolensk Airport.
Having left the Court, Arabski was surrounded by reporters, but he did not want to answer any questions. He ignored Ewa Stankiewicz, who asked what legal regulations or whose orders he followed when he informed the victims’ families that they would not be allowed to open the caskets with the bodies of their loved ones upon their arrival in Poland. He only said that he was a victim of a vicious campaign and false accusations.
The Court requested both sides to reduce the number of submitted witnesses. Attorney Hambura requested that Donald Tusk and Radosław Sikorski be deposed. He justified his request with a quotation from a book by a former Civic Platform’s politician, Janusz Palikot. In his book, The Civic Platform Backstage, Palikot wrote:
“Preventing Kaczyński (from flying to Katyn) was a specific order that Tusk kept on giving to his people all the time. Mostly, these orders were not complied with because Kaczyński’s people were smarter, i.e. they were able to charter planes for him on a short notice. Donald was unhappy that his people were unable to stop Kaczyński from flying. Most often, he blamed the chief of MON (Polish Ministry of Defense), Bogdan Klich for it.”
The Court is yet to rule on Hambura’s request to depose Tusk and Sikorski.
Click on the thumbnails below to view screen dumps from the detectors used to examine the wreckage and seats from the Polish president's plane crash in Smolensk. An "X" denotes the presence of the detected explosive substance and its type. The underlined Polish word "Probka" or "probka" in the screen dump 1 and 2, means "Sample"
Why did they all fly on the same plane?
Synopsis: January 12, 2013, Toronto, Canada. The wife of the late Deputy-Minister of Culture Tomasz Merta: "What I am about to tell you now, are suspicions - and not even my own - but, rather the [suspicions of the] individuals in the inner-circles of the [Polish] military... I heard a statement that was made - but, I am not taking any responsibility for how credible, or not credible it is. [I heard that] had the generals and journalists' not been re-assigned to different aircraft, it wouldn't have been the Tupolev [Tu-154M], but rather the Casa [transport aircraft] that would have been taken out.
Because the Generals were no longer onboard the Casa, there was no reason for it to get airborne. And for this reason it was the Yak[-40] that flew off to Smolensk. This Casa [transport aircraft] was never examined in any way. It was not subject to any examination. Aside from a single note in the deposition given to the military, no one was interested why this aircraft didn't fly [to Smolensk]. Perhaps, this is someones crazy phantasy, but perhaps it isn't.
Some [Polish] military personnel had suggested, that it [the Casa] had to stay behind at the Okecie military [tarmack], so that the explosives could be removed from it - because they were no longer needed [...] I am only repeating what I was told."
"Disarming" Explosives ...
It is worth for us to retrace the entire process of "disarming" the case of explosive substances at the crash site. It all started with the publication of Cezary Gmyz in "Rzeczpospolita" on October 30, 2012, and information that the detectors, which were used by experts in Smolensk (in late September and October) showed traces of TNT and nitroglycerine.
As it turned out, the journalist was also reporting about the indication of Hexogen. The storm broke. The prosecution denied the publication, and ultimately, the editor-in-chief of "Rzeczpospolita," Cezary Gmyz and two other journalists lost their jobs. The entire editorial staff of one of Poland’s most popular weeklies, "Uważam Rze", was also silenced.
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