The leader of a committee dominated by opposition MPs has said the government must take some of the blame for the Smolensk air crash on April 10, which killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

Head of the Law-and-Justice-led Smolensk parliamentary committee, Antoni Macierewicz told journalists that the government was aware of organisational problems concerning the presidential flight to Smolensk on 10 April.

“The government was informed of the problems at [Smolensk’s] North Airport, that it may be in poor condition, and that it may not have been in service,” Macierewicz said at a press conference, Thursday afternoon.

The Law and Justice politician said that a special working committee called up by Andrzej Przewoznik, head of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, to undertake a reconnaissance mission of the airport, did not manage to visit Smolensk.

According to Antoni Macierewicz, correspondence between deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer and Presidential Minister Mariusz Handzlik reveal that the airport in Smolensk was to be especially opened for the flights on both the 7  - which took Prime Minisyer Tusk to a specila ceremony in commemoration of the 1940 Katyn massacre - and Lech Kaczynski’s visit 10 April.

The committee was set up at the beginning of July shortly after the second round of presidential elections. Recently, Antoni Macierewicz pronounced the Smolensk catastrophe “a crime”, hinting at government responsibility as the cause of the crash. (jb/pg)

Source: PAP

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