The mystery over the death in a plane crash of Polish president Lech Kaczynski has deepened after investigators said there was an explosion on board.
Kaczynski died with 95 other people when the plane came down at Smolensk, western Russia, on April 10, 2010 (pictured). The president was on his way to an event commemorating thousands of Polish officers killed by Soviet-era secret police in 1940.
An earlier inquiry blamed human error and poor weather conditions for the crash, which was said to have happened after the wing of the aircraft clipped a tree as it landed.
However, Mr Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, 67, who leads Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party, has always maintained the crash was not an accident. He launched a new inquiry after winning power in 2015.
“We’re getting closer to the truth,” Mr Kaczynski said yesterday. He accused Russian air traffic controllers of having “without a doubt deliberately” misdirected the aircraft. He added: “There is a high degree of likelihood that an explosion occurred.”
The Kremlin has always denied any wrongdoing.
Waclaw Berczynski, head of the new team of investigators, told the public broadcaster TVP Info: “The plane started to break up and lose parts in the air. They fell to the ground far from where the infamous birch tree was.”
