When, in mid-September of this year, the investigative team No. 1 of the Polish National Prosecutor's Office applied to the Warsaw District Court with a motion for the temporary arrest of three dispatchers, on duty at the Smolensk-Severny airport during the crash of the Polish presidential plane Tu-154M in April 2010 of the year, many Russian politicians and political scientists perceived such a gesture as another attack on Moscow. However, in Poland everything was perceived differently..
The Smolensk catastrophe is one of the biggest controversial events in the perception of the Polish political class and society. After the crash, the party "Law and Justice" (PiS), which is chaired by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, brother of the deceased President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, made this tragedy a cult phenomenon. In addition to personal relationships, calculation also played a role.. The version of a pre-planned assassination attempt on the president and members of the delegation fell on fertile soil, after all, few other people, except for Poles, so prone to conspiracy thinking. After, like PiS in the fall 2015 won the parliamentary elections, the previously closed topic again took the first positions. The ruling party began re-investigations. One was led by the prosecutor's office. Second - Anthony Macherevich, who was at that time the Minister of National Defense of Poland, which created at the beginning 2016 ad hoc subcommittee.
Macherevich attracted various international experts and "experts", progress was constantly covered by pro-government publications. But at some point it became apparent, that the leadership of "Law and Justice" is dissatisfied with the activities of the subcommittee, which periodically threw out to the public more and more new versions of the "explosion theory" of the aircraft, what looked like discrediting the April tragedy 2010 of the year. In January 2018 year Macherevich was dismissed from the post of minister, without offering an equivalent position, and the government television channel TVP stopped broadcasting the meetings of the subcommittee. Questions for the ex-head of the defense department began to grow. In February of this year, he promised, that the final report will appear in April, then repeated it in early June, finally, 30 July, answering the question of the Seimas deputies, guaranteed its delivery no later than 30 September. However, he never did anything., while continuing to insist on the "explosion theory".
Which fundamentally contradicted the position of the National Prosecutor's Office, which took as a basis the version about unintentional mistakes of Russian dispatchers (or willful), leading to the plane crash, what many Polish experts drew attention to. A petition for temporary arrest remained a mystery. Legal scholars reasonably noted, that the Constitution of Russia prohibits the extradition of its citizens to any foreign power, what prosecutors could not fail to know. It was obvious, what is the playing of the political card, what was associated with the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor General Zbigniew Zöbro, whose party "Solidarity Poland" is a member of the ruling coalition. By this time, a conflict flared up between Zobro and Kaczynski due to opposing views on Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “The Smolensk case and the transfer of the indictment to the court is a signal for us that, that the investigation will soon be closed, - reported to the OKO portal. press source in "Law and Justice". - Party chairman, who lost his brother in Smolensk, was presented with a fait accompli ".
If the problem was the will of the attorney general, who thus tried to score points in the eyes of Kaczynski, the intrigue should have been resolved at the end of September after the conclusion of a new agreement between the parties - members of the ruling coalition. Zobro more or less retained its position. However, a new attack on Macherevich followed., and already from an unexpected side. Karnovsky brothers' media holding attacked him, long-time and uncompromising supporter of PiS. In early October, Sieci magazine published an article strongly criticizing the ex-minister's subcommittee. “This is shocking material, full of lies, defamation and attempts to completely disqualify the investigation, - Macherevich declared in response on the air of the Catholic TV channel Trwam - Its essence is, to show the Russian side and the opposition, "Civil Platform", that there is no truth about Smolensk ". But the balance of power is no longer in favor of the former head of the defense department.
As it appears, the leadership of the ruling party decided to write it off, and even a forty-year friendship with Jaroslaw Kaczynski won't help Macherevich. "Law and Justice" realized, that the "explosion theory" has no proof, and no final report of the subcommittee can convince her as Poles, and public opinion abroad. The prosecutor's line in this regard enables PiS to back down, saving face. The calculation is based on that, that Russia will not issue dispatchers, and therefore, “Law and Justice” can declare to its voters, that it is because of Moscow's refusal to "cooperate" the Polish investigators cannot establish the truth, after which the case of the Smolensk disaster will be written off for scrap. And donate Macherevich, whom, likely, at the upcoming November congress of the ruling party will be removed from the post of its vice-chairman. In April 2010 year Macherevich should fly to Smolensk together with Lech Kaczynski, however, at the entrance to the airfield, he changed his mind and went by train. after 10 years the Smolensk disaster still reached him, sending "St. Anthony" into political oblivion.
Stanislav Stremidlovsky
