Polish right questions presidential jet crash six years on

Poland marked the sixth anniversary Sunday of the jet crash that killed then president Lech Kaczynski amid louder-than-ever claims it was no accident -- fueled by his twin brother's party winning power last year.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski heads the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party which won October elections, enabling it to revive a probe into the 2010 air crash in Russia that also killed 95 others.

The party, which had been in opposition for eight years, rejects the previous liberal government's conclusions that pilot error, poor weather and poor air traffic control were to blame.

Most of those who died when the plane came down in Smolensk, western Russia on April 10, 2010 were senior Polish state officials, including its military chief of staff and central banker.

The head of the new investigative subcommittee, Waclaw Berczynski, last week reiterated his theory that the Tupolev 154 exploded mid-air, although he offered no proof.

"We can say with great probability, practically with near certainty, that the aircraft broke apart mid-air," he told the Catholic weekly Gosc Niedzielny.

- 'Political necrophilia' -

"The PiS won't stop engaging in political necrophilia on the victims' graves," Rafal Grupinski, a lawmaker with the liberal opposition party Civic Platform (PO), which was in power at the time of the crash, said Saturday.

Experts from the government of then premier Donald Tusk -- now European Council president -- and Russian investigators have all dismissed assassination theories which surfaced almost immediately after the tragedy.

The new committee has not ruled out exhuming corpses for a fresh round of autopsies, raising doubts over those conducted by Russia just after the crash.

But the main purpose of the probe is to find those responsible.

PiS leaders have accused Tusk of having a hand in the disaster, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, long considered an enemy of Poland by the Polish right.

They have increasingly clamoured for Tusk to stand trial, a call reiterated by Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz on the eve of the anniversary.

The minister, the main proponent of the theory that the crash was a political assassination, said on public television Saturday that it was "evident that Tusk should suffer all the consequences of his actions".

Others want a more extreme outcome, including journalist Ewa Stankiewicz, who works for the ultra-nationalist weekly Gazeta Polska.

"Court for Tusk, that is not enough... The death penalty is needed," she said Saturday at a rally organised by the newspaper in front of the Russian embassy in Warsaw.

- Conspiracy theories -

Six years on, the aircraft wreckage and the black boxes remain in Russia, as Moscow refuses to return them to Poland before its own judicial investigation is complete.

This refusal has fuelled conspiracy theories that the crash was a Russian assassination or that there is a Polish-Russian cover-up underway to keep the real cause of the crash secret.

The new Polish investigation has yet to offer any proof to back up those theories, stressing instead that its work has only begun.

Anniversary ceremonies, prayers and special mass were scheduled across Poland and in Smolensk on Sunday, which Poland's governing conservatives are marking with more solemnity than their predecessors.

For the first time a military guard force joined the morning ceremonies in front of the presidential palace. At 8:41 am, the exact time of the accident, Jaroslaw Kaczynski placed a wreath before a portrait of the late presidential couple.

President Andrzej Duda was later to unveil a commemorative plaque, while Kaczynski was to deliver a speech giving him a chance to defend the controversial reforms his party has pushed through since taking office.

The new laws have notably strengthened controls over public media and paralysed Poland's constitutional court, sparking outcry at home and drawing criticism from the European Union, headed by Tusk since December 2014.