President to appoint new defence minister
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
02.08.2011 08:16
President Bronislaw Komorowski is to appoint Tomasz Siemoniak this afternoon as Poland's new defence minister, after the resignation last week of Bogdan Klich following the report into the causes of the Smolensk air crash last year.
Tomasz Siemoniak; photo PAP (archives)
Tomasz Siemoniak; photo PAP (archives)
Siemoniak was a secretary of state at the Interrior Ministry and will be now charged with implementing recommendations of the Smolensk report, published last Friday, into the causes of the plane crash on 10 April 2010, which killed all 96 on board, including President Lech Kaczynski.
Bogdan Klich has said that he resigned from office because to carry on in the post would be a burden for the ministry in implementing the recommendations of the committee into the causes of the Smolensk catastrophe.
But it was a difficult decision, he said, because, "of my emotional attachment to the armed forces and four years of work in this ministry".
The Smolensk report was critical of much of the preperation for the presidential plane flight to western Russia last April, which was taking President Kaczynski and other officials to a 1940 Katyn massacre ceremony.
The investigation by the committee found that the pilots were poorly trained for the flight.
The report also noted failures at the Russian air traffic control tower at Smolensk airport in informing pilots on weather conditions and the position of the plane as it prepared for landing through heavy fog. (pg)