Nizhny Novgorod - Russia and Poland are in technical talks on the transfer to Warsaw of wreckage from the plane of former Polish President Lech Kaczynski, which crashed outside Smolensk on April 10, 2010.
“Technical talks are underway between Russia and Poland on the transfer of the wreckage to Poland,” Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said at a press conference in Nizhniy Novgorod on the sidelines of a forum of Russian and Polish regions.
“The Investigative Committee is continuing the probe. By law, the wreckage is rated as material evidence. After the probe is over and a final decision is formulated, the wreckage will be handed over to Poland,” she said.
She said that since this issue is very sensitive, the investigation is being conducted with special care, “so no one will have doubts about the quality of the investigation.”
Matviyenko’s Polish counterpart Bogdan Borusewicz, said that “the air crash is of enormous political significance, therefore special attention should be paid to the observance of all legal procedures.”
“Naturally, we are expecting the wreckage to be handed over to Poland shortly. The Polish prosecutors cannot carry out their own investigation through to the end without it,” he added.
A Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft of the Polish Air Force crashed near Smolensk on April 10 2010. It was carrying an official Polish delegation led by President Lech Kaczynski flying to Katyn to attend memorial events. All 96 – 88 passengers and eight crewmembers – were killed.
The death toll includes Kaczynski and his wife, top government executives, lawmakers, among them deputy speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament, and prominent Polish public and religious leaders.
The Interstate Aviation Committee published a final report in January 2011 on the outcome off a technical probe into the air disaster. The crash was due to insufficient preparedness for the flight and flaws in the crew’s professional training, not the crew’s decision not to fly to a reserve air field, it said.
