PROCURATORS UNDER A MICROSCOPE
WITOLD DUDZIŃSKI
The matter is unusual: the way of conducting the investigation by military procurators in the matter of the Smoleńsk catastrophe has waited till…procurators’ investigation
The investigated was started by the District Military Procurators in Poznań, and it was entrusted to a civilian procurator, as it had been defined, for the reason of carefulness about maintaining objectivism. The report on this matter was submitted by Mr Piotr Pszczółkowski, a proxy of Jarosław Kaczyński, whereas the intervention was undertaken at the General procurator by MP Stanisław Piotrowicz, a vice-chief of the Parliamentary Team for the Investigation of the Catastrophe Causes and the Seym Commission of Justice. According to those who had submitted the report, military procurators, participating in the actions after the Smoleńsk catastrophe in Russia, did not fulfill duties: they did not take part in autopsies and they did not apply for them. They did not carry out any autopsy after transporting the casualties’ bodies to Poland either, although – when death is sudden – they had such a duty.
Passive investigators
Polish procurators made an agreement with Russian investigators nearly after twenty four hours after the catastrophe, thanks to which they could participate in legal proceedings in which they wanted to. However, they were only looking passively at the course of events – as the members of the parliamentary team noted – they did not participate in either the inspections or the autopsies.
– I asked a general procurator Andrzej Seremeta who had made a decision that procurators had not participated in the proceedings in Russia. The answer was not specified but now an investigation has been started – says MP Piotrowicz. As he judges, it is a step in a good direction, but unusual though. – A different matter is with a situation of starting a basic investigation against procurators within the investigation, about failing to comply duties in the still carried out investigation – I emphasize –with which I have not met during 30 years of my work as a procurator. Whose fault it is - it will turn out – that gen. Zbigniew Parulski was in Russia after the catastrophe, who is the present chief of military prosecution and the chief deputy of the general procurator. And he – as a procurator of the highest rank – had to make decisions. He could have also consulted with his superior – the general procurator. Although it was hardly probable because it was then when Parulski was showing his independence from the general prosecution. Which was later revealed in a public debate of both procurators and in the resignation of Parulski.
Two years too late
However, today we should not expect any news after the investigation in the case of procurators’ actions. They are not expected by MP Piotrowicz either. – Many investigations have already been done in connection with the Smoleńsk investigation – I say about those ones excluded from the mainstream – but they finished without any effect – he emphasizes. I wish I would not be wrong and this matter would finish differently, according to the knowledge which today public opinion has. Because today nobody doubts that prosecution did not do what it was supposed to do. And it is not doing anything yet.
He also reminds that in the last weeks, in relation to the publication of ‘Rzeczpospolita’ about the traces of substances included in explosive materials uncovered on the debris of the airplane, it turned out that the prosecution had been undertaking investigations on the presence of these substances for over two years . Considering the circumstances of the catastrophe, these basic actions were undertaken over two years before the unprecedented destruction and washing of the wreckage. Skepticism about the fates and results of the undertaken investigation is understandable, when reminding about the fate of a complaint of Marta Kaczyńska about the redemption of the investigation on incorrectness in preparing visits in Katyń in April 2010. When in June the prosecution redeemed the investigation although a lot of incorrectness had been proven (it was acknowledged that no official could be accused). Kaczyńska submitted a complaint but procurators refused to accept it and pass it to the court. Kaczyńska made an appeal from this decision. Only now the District Court for Warsaw-Downtown repealed the provision of a procurator and considered this appeal. The court will have to recognize the complaint of Kaczyńska essentially. It does not mean that the court will acknowledge this appeal, especially that procurators will take a serious attitude towards the possible investigation unwanted by them.
(AA)
"Niedziela" 48/2012