Smolensk exhumations begin

The State Prosecutor’s office confirmed last week that it will go ahead with exhuming the bodies of 83 passengers killed in the Smolensk plane crash in April of 2010. On Monday, the exhumation began by removing the bodies of President Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria. A Polish press report on Monday indicated that at least 10 exhumations will be performed this year, and that the process would continue until late in 2017. Speaking in the Sejm, PiS party Chair Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of the deceased president, said that Poland will not be “truly free” while the case remains open. A total of 96 passengers, most of them government officials and aides, died in the crash, which the original investigation concluded was due to the pilots’ attempts to land in inclement weather.