Polish President Says Exhumation of Smolensk Plane Crash Victims Necessary

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Sunday it is necessary to exhume the bodies of victims of the 2010 plane crash near the Russian city of Smolensk.

In October, Poland's prosecutors announced exhumation of the bodies of victims, who had not been exhumed before. The procedure is scheduled for November 14 while relatives of the victims are opposing exhumation.

He also called on families of the victims to exercise tolerance towards the actions of the prosecution office as the crash is a matter of national importance and the biggest tragedy for Poland since the end of the Second World War

"As a lawyer I know one thing: polish laws … imply that the public prosecution in case of doubts must carry out a procedure such as exhumation," Duda told the PAP news agency in an interview.

On April 10, 2010, a Polish jet airliner carrying Kaczynski, his wife and officials crashed amid heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near the Russian city of Smolensk. All 96 people on board died in the crash. The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee said that the flight crew’s decision not to reroute the plane to an alternative aerodrome led to the crash.

In early February, the Polish Defense Ministry said that Warsaw would restart its investigation into the crash from the very beginning.