MoD experts to investigate Polish leader’s plane crash

BRITISH scientists are to test for traces of explosives on the wreckage of a Polish presidential plane which crashed in Russia, killing all on board, amid accusations from Poland that the incident was an “act of Russian aggression”.

An investigative committee set up by the Polish government has asked the Ministry of Defence’s Forensic Explosive’s Laboratory to join a new investigation into the 2010 death of president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

The laboratory investigated wreckage from the Lockerbie and Bali bombings and the London 7/7 attacks.

Previous investigations into the Smolensk disaster have blamed a number of factors such as pilot error for the crash in dense fog near Smolensk, but in 2015 Warsaw announced it would reopen investigations.

The case has assumed huge political significance amid rising tensions with Russia.

Poland’s governing Law and Justice party claim the disaster resulted from a possible assassination at the hands of Russian secret services, perhaps in collusion with members of the Polish government.

Only last week, Antoni Macierewicz, the Polish defence minister and one of the loudest advocates of the assassination theory, described the Smolensk disaster as an “act of Russian aggression”.

Russia has dismissed allegations that it may have downed Kaczynski’s jet as “groundless” and “biased” although it still refuses to return the tangled remains of the aircraft for legal reasons.

Although the investigative committee has been at work for more than a year, no compelling evidence that the air disaster was not caused by an accident has emerged.