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Crash
Warsaw, March 21, 2017(Reuters/NAN) Poland’s Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz on Tuesday accused European Council President Donald Tusk of working with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to harm Polish interests in the wake of a 2010 plane crash.
The plane crash killed President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and 95 others in Russia.
The ministry notified the military department of the National Prosecutor’s Office that it suspected Tusk, who was the Polish prime minister as at the time, of an “abuse of trust in foreign relations”.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in Warsaw confirmed it had received the ministry’s notification, which effectively accuses Tusk of diplomatic treason.
It now has 30 days to decide whether to investigate or not.
Tusk’s office in Brussels declined to comment.
This marks the gravest formal charge against him by the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, led by Kaczynski’s brother Jaroslaw, Poland’s most powerful politician and a longstanding opponent of Tusk.
Macierewicz “Tusk made an illegal contract with Vladimir Putin to the detriment of Poland and should bear criminal responsibility for that.”
The report quoted the notification as saying that “Tusk agreed to terms that prevented Poland from playing a full part in investigating the causes of the crash near Russia’s western city of Smolensk.’’
Macierewicz alleged that Tusk failed to secure from the start an agreement with Moscow “to guarantee the participation of representatives of Poland in all investigative activities on the site.
“This allowed Russia to limit the Polish role.
“Tusk also failed to take steps that would enforce the return of the Tu-154 plane wreckage to Poland and all these actions amounted to acting to the detriment of Poland.
“Russia has repeatedly refused Poland’s demand to return the Tu-154 wreckage and its black box recorders, citing its own ongoing investigation,’’ he said.
The notification from the ministry covers the period from the plane crash on April 10, 2010 to 2014, when Tusk took up his current post as chairman of EU leaders’ summits.
The alleged crime carries a sentence of one to 10 years in prison.
“It’s not about negligence, it is about a criminal offense,” Macierewicz said.
Polish prosecutors are already conducting several investigations into the Smolensk crash, including a case against a group of public officials suspected of acting to Poland’s detriment years after the accident.
Tusk has frequently denied any responsibility for the crash, which an earlier official investigation concluded was an accident.
The accusation marks a sharp escalation of the conflict between PiS and Tusk, who led the rival Civic Platform party and was prime minister from 2007 to 2014.
PiS has already accused him of neglecting the existence of a fraudulent investment scheme when prime minister and selling off too many Polish businesses to foreigners.
The government tried and failed earlier this month to block Tusk’s reappointment to a second term in his EU post and replace him with an alternative Polish candidate. (Reuters/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/sadiya hamza