Group vows to go on hunger strike over probe into 2010 jet crash

The Solidarni 2010 association said it would stage its protest next year in an effort to force authorities in Poland to come up with official findings about the causes of the crash near the Russian city of Smolensk and to bring those responsible for the disaster to account, according to the zachod.pl website.

The group announced the protest following a meeting in the western city of Zielona Góra last week, the zachod.pl website reported.

The website quoted the association’s chairwoman, Ewa Stankiewicz, as saying that efforts to establish the causes of the disaster and bring those responsible to justice have been insufficient so far.

Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of the disaster, which killed Poland’s then-President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others in western Russia on April 10, 2010.

A group of Polish prosecutors and experts on Monday started work in Russia to re-examine the wreckage of the Polish presidential plane.

The head of a Polish commission reinvestigating the 2010 crash said in April that a probe had shown those on board died as a result of an explosion.

Poland’s ruling conservatives have long challenged an official report into the causes of the disaster issued by the previous government, which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.

A Russian report has placed all the blame on the Poles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of 2017 denied Polish suggestions that the 2010 air crash was the result of a Russian conspiracy.

Russia has refused to return the wreckage of the presidential plane to Poland, claiming that it is continuing to investigate the crash.

(gs)

Source: zachod.pl