Poland's Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the findings of a team assessing the work of the commission would be submitted to prosecutors.
Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Photo: P. Chmielewski/Polish Radio
A total of 41 notifications will be filed, including 10 related to former defense minister Mariusz Błaszczak, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The allegations against Błaszczak involve dereliction of duty, abuse of power, violation of public procurement law, and complicity in the destruction of a government plane used in the investigation.
Mariusz Błaszczak. Photo: Piotr Podlewski/Polish Radio
Both Błaszczak and Antoni Macierewicz, who led the commission, were part of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) administration, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.
According to the report, the commission, established to reinvestigate the 2010 disaster near the western Russian city of Smolensk that killed then-President Lech Kaczyński and many top Polish officials, focused not on discovering the true cause of the crash but on supporting a pre-determined hypothesis that a bomb was responsible.
The report argues that the commission’s political aim was to deepen divisions within Polish society.
The costs of the panel’s work, which spanned several years, have been estimated at over PLN 81 million (around EUR 18.5 million, USD 20 million).
Of this, more than PLN 5 million went to salaries, despite some staff lacking the appropriate qualifications, according to the report.
Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk said that commission members earned "hundreds of thousands of zlotys" each.
He added that five pieces of evidence from the wreckage of the plane were destroyed, and 19 others were lost while in the commission’s possession.
Cezary Tomczyk. Photo: Przemysław Chmielewski/Polish Radio
Further controversy surrounds the panel's handling of intelligence reports.
Błaszczak, who oversaw the commission in his role as defense minister, was reportedly informed of various irregularities via 11 classified reports from the Military Counterintelligence Service.
One such report was also sent to then-Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the PiS party.
In addition, a public intelligence report was delivered to the current defense minister regarding a December 2020 meeting between Macierewicz and a Russian national.
The commission was established in 2016 by Macierewicz, who served as defense minister at the time. He later took direct leadership of the body.
In 2022, the "Smolensk commission" presented a controversial report challenging the original findings which had attributed the crash to a collision with trees and the ground, rather than an explosion.
Antoni Macierewicz. Photo: Przemysław Chmielewski/PR
The commission was disbanded in December last year by the new government.
Kosiniak-Kamysz’s assessment team, formed in January and led by pilot and air force auditor Col. Leszek Błach, concluded that Macierewicz had pressured experts to support his explosion theory, with one expert accusing Macierewicz of blackmail.
The final report indicates that Macierewicz was aware that the crash had resulted from a collision with a tree and subsequent impact with the ground, contradicting the commission's own claims of an explosion on board.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP