Polish government wiped out in plane crash

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Polish 'Air Force 1' Crashes with President Kaczynski on Board
A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed near the airport of the Russian city of Smolensk, the BBC reported Saturday.[/align]
Kaczynski was due to visit Smolensk to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when Soviet troops killed thousands of Poles. The Polish Foreign Ministry said the President and his wife were aboard the plane, Lech Kaczynski was elected President of Poland in December 2005.

Lech Kaczynski was born in Warsaw in 1949, the son of an engineer who served as a soldier of the Armia Krajowa in World War II. Kaczynski has an identical twin brother, who is the former Prime Minister of Poland and co-founder (2001) and current Chairman of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński. The brothers first shot to fame at the age of 12 as stars in the film "Two boys who stole the moon".

Lech followed his brother into the anti-government movement in the late 1970s and served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard during the August 1980 Solidarity-led protests. He was arrested under martial law in 1981. The brothers found themselves outside mainstream politics in the early 1990s after falling out with the Solidarity leader, and then Polish president, Lech Walesa.

Kaczyński served as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005 when he was elected as Poland's president on the ticket of the Law and Justice Party. His campaign then focused on the lack of government experience of his rival, Donald Tusk and Poles’ need to have a president who would stand up for their interests. The Law and Justice party stresses the traditional values of the Catholic Church. Lech Kaczynski is married to economist Maria Kaczyńska and has one daughter, Marta (born 1980) who graduated from the Department of Law at Gdańsk University.

On Saturday, a Tupolev Tu-154 plane carrying President Kaczyński and his wife Maria crashed while on approach to Smolensk Airport at 10:56 am Moscow time. The crash occurred in foggy conditions about 1.5km from the airport. The governor of Smolensk Oblast (Smolensk Region) confirmed for Russia 24 news channel that there were no survivors in the crash. Early reports suggest 87 people were on-board the flight.

List of Top Polish Officials on Kaczynski Delegation Who Perished in Smolensk Plane Crash

Lech Kaczyński – President of Poland

Maria Kaczyńska – Wife of Lech Kaczynski

Ryszard Kaczorowski - Ryszard Kaczorowski, Honorary GCMG (born 26 November 1919) is a Polish Statesman. Between 1989 and 1990 he served as the last President of Poland in exile. Resigned his post following Poland's regaining independence from the Soviet sphere of influence and election of Lech Wałęsa as the first democratically-elected president of Poland since World War II. He also passed the presidential insignia to Wałęsa, thus ending the 45-years long episode of the Polish government in exile.

Jerzy Szmajdziński - a Vice-Marshal of Polish Sejm and a former Polish minister of defence. Candidate for President of Poland in presidential elections 2010

Władysław Stasiak – Head of the President’s Office

Aleksander Szczygło - Head of the National Security Bureau

Paweł Wypych - Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the President of Poland.

Mariusz Handzlik – Undersecretary at the President’s Administration

Andrzej Kremer – Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

WP gen. Franciszek Gągor – Head of the General Staff of the Polish Army

Andrzej Przewoźnik - Vice-President and Secretary of the Commission for the Commemorations of the Victims of Katyn Massacre of the Prime Minister (1994-1998).

Grzeogrz Dolniak – Member of the Sejm

Przemysław Gosiewski – Member of the Sejm

Zbigniew Wassermann – Member of the Sejm

Janusz Kochanowski – Polish Ombudsman

Sławomir Skrzypek – Polish Central Bank Governor

Janusz Kurtyka – President of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance

Bishop Tadeusz Płoski - Polish Roman Catholic priest, dean of the riverside military units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Dean of the Government Protection Bureau, Field Bishop of the Polish Army

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That's a shocking amount of VIPs knocked out in one blow - there's a lot of Polish people in Glasgow, so I'm sure there will be a lot of them really upset by this.

[SpursFan1902]

Why were they all on the same plane?? They should have been spread out over many flights just so this didn't happen. That is the first rule in flying important people...don't fly them all together!

[pirtybirdy]

Corporations follow that same rule. Put yer executive management on separate flights. Put yer schlepps on the same flight. lol!

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Apparently this video shows evidence of Russian troops killing survivors of this air-crash... It just looks like a very badly (and mentally) done remix to me.

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Polish military prosecutor who attempted suicide had £200,000 bounty on his head
A Polish military prosecutor who made a suicide attempt during a press conference said he had received death threats and a £200,000 bounty had been placed on his head owing to a corruption investigation in the armed forces.
Matthew Day, Warsaw
10 Jan 2012
telegraph.co.uk[/align]
In an interview with the Polish Press Agency the day after he shot himself in the head only to survive, Col Mikolaj Przybyl said his life had been threatened and that he was a marked man. The officer also claimed his flat had been broken into, the tires on his car tampered with in an apparent assassination attempt, and that his dog had been killed as part of an intimidation campaign.

He added his suicide attempt had been "influenced" by his investigation into the high-level corruption. "My act was influenced by the cases I am investigating: one of them is the most serious involving financial issues in the Polish military," said the colonel. Col. Przybyl had tried to commit suicide after breaking a press conference in the western city of Poznan to "air the room". After journalists had left his office he put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. A television camera left rolling recorded the sound of the gun being cocked, a shot and that of a body hitting the floor.

He had requested the pistol used in the suicide bid for personal protection owing to fears that his life was in danger. The soldier was rushed to hospital but made good progress following an operation for facial injuries, and medical officials said Tuesday that he should be fit enough to leave in a couple of days.

The colonel attributed his survival to a technician trying to adjust television cables. "I wanted to commit suicide," he explained. "I put the pistol in my mouth but my hand shook when I saw the door handle move. A man who wanted to shift the cables saved me ... the bullet hit my cheek and didn't go through my head."

During his hospital interview the colonel also claimed that his corruption investigation had prompted authorities to speed up their attempts to reorganise his department and place it under civilian control. Col Przybyl has not elaborated on the specifics of the investigation but during Monday's press conference he said "at risk are not only hundreds of millions of zloty from the state budget but also the life and health of the Polish soldier, who often receives defective or malfunctioning equipment."

Adding to Col Przybyl's woes have been allegations that his department made illegal attempts to tap and hack into phones owned by journalists reporting on the leak of classified information relating to the 2010 Smolensk air disaster that claimed the lives of Lech Kaczynski, the Polish president, and dozens of the country's political and military elite. "I could accept the fact that my car had been damaged, a tire loosened in an attempt to kill me and that my dog had been killed. I also knew about the bounty put on my head but I couldn't accept the fact that I had been accused of an illegal action," said Col Przybyl.

Confronted with these allegations he said he also wanted to take his own life "to protect the honour of the office". Asked by a reporter how he felt, Col Przybyl replied: "As if I had been shot".