Polish prosecutors accuse Russian air traffic controllers and a "third person" of deliberately provoking 2010 crash

"Evidence has been collected and obtained during the investigation, which allowed prosecutors to formulate new accusations against air traffic controllers, as well as a third person in the flight control tower" said Deputy Attorney General of the National Public Prosecutor's Office Marek Pasionek.

Pasionek said the evidence serves to level "charges of the crime of deliberately provoking the catastrophe that resulted in the death of a large number of people."

The prosecutors said on Monday that a new analysis of recordings of conversations between the pilots and Russian controllers justified pressing the charges. "An analysis of the evidence ... has allowed prosecutors to formulate new charges against air traffic controllers, citizens of the Russian Federation," Polish Deputy Prosecutor General Marek Pasionek told a news conference.

Poland’s National Prosecutor Marek Kuczynski said there is “no doubt” that one of the causes of the crash was the behaviour of those in the control tower. He said they were guilty of “deliberately causing a catastrophe.”

The Polish Defence Ministry said last year that Warsaw would restart its investigation into the crash from scratch.

The Polish Prosecution decided in November 2017 to initiate the exhumation of all the victims. The Polish prosecutors said on Monday that so far recent exhumations all of the victims’ coffins since 2017, which had been sealed in Russia and never opened in Poland preceding burials, have so far revealed that in two cases remains were in the wrong coffins and in five coffins there were fragments of other bodies. All exhumations are to be continued and carried out throughout 2017 and finished by spring 2018.

So far, out of nine exhumations that have been carried out so far in 2012, six bodies were buried in the wrong graves. As it turned out, the victims were buried naked in plastic bags containing dirt, mud, waste, rubbish, cigarette butts, ripped pieces of clothing and with organs having been moved around (displaced).

In total, since 2012, there has been 5 cases (10 people) of bodies placed in wrong coffins.

Russia has so far refused to return the wreckage of the jet to Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, citing its own continuing investigation.

more information: Botched burial saga continues