The 2010 Katyń Families Association
28.11.2012

Below please find a list of deaths related to the Smolensk crash.


If you find the list below to be incomplete and you would like to advise any corrections or additions please send them through and contact the administrater of the website.


1. Stefan Zielonka, a cryptographer and a non-commissioned officer, died on 12 April 2009. He was a specialist with knowledge of all NATO communications systems; he knew the entire network of Polish agents. The soldier of seemingly unblemished reputation disappeared without a trace one year and two days before the Smolensk crash. Suspected of working with Chinese intelligence, he was found floating at Warsaw's Wawer district about 26-27 April 2010 (17 days after the Smolensk crash). His wife reported him missing as late as after 7 days. As it turned out later, the ensign's wife also worked in the services and later disappeared without a trace.

 

2. Grzegorz Michniewicz, Director General of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, a man with access to the most secret intelligence and information, a member of the supervisory board at the Polish fuel giant – PKN Orlen. His driver found his body hanging on a noose the night of the 22 to 23 December – on the day TU-154 returned from the repairs conducted in Samara, the very same one that crumbled to smithereens in Smolensk. The Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, which investigated the case for almost a year, said that Michniewicz committed a suicide. However, his family saw many irregularities in the workings of the Office. “I see a lot of irregularities in the workings of the Prosecutor's Office, but this is far too painful for me and I do not want it to be belaboured in the media” said one of the loved ones of the deceased. Nobody saw a potential suicide coming. The Director of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister called his wife a day before the alleged suicide to make meeting arrangements for the next day. He also sent text messages to his friends making plans. The death of Michniewicz was to a large extent kept quiet in the media.

 

3. Professor Stefan Grocholewski, an expert in reading digital data carriers discovered manipulations in the black boxes recordings of CASA. He “died” on 31 March 2010. ('CASA': The Mirosławiec air accident occurred in Poland on 23 January 2008 when an EADS CASA C-295 military transport plane crashed as it approached the Mirosławiec runway, killing all passengers and crew. The Polish Air Force plane had been flying from Warsaw to the 12th Air Base in Mirosławiec, and the 20 victims included high-ranking air force officers.)

 

4. A Lutheran bishop Mieczysław Cieślar, a bishop at the Warsaw Diocese of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, died in a car crash on 18 April 2010, when he was on his way back from the memorial service of the Smolensk crash's victims. He was to succeed Adam Pilch, who died in Smolensk. The right-wing media reported that the cleric, just after the crash of the presidential Tupolev in Smolensk, was to receive a text message from the priest Adam Pilch (he died in Smolensk) saying that they survived the crash. Cieślar was working on the surveillance issues of protestant circles by the Security Service of the People's Republic of Poland. The media did not mention anything about Cieślar's death.

 

5. Krzysztof Knyż died on 2 June 2010 in Moscow on sepsis (according to the official reports). What is interesting, the western press reported that he had been murdered in his own apartment. He was a camera operator for “Fakty” in TVN. He worked with Wiktor Bater, a Polsat News correspondent, in Smolensk during the crash. He was to be the one who recorded the final approach of the presidential plane to the airport in Smolensk. He was one of the first reporters who managed to arrive at the crash site, before the Russian special forces forced them to leave the area. Supposedly, he was able to record the emergency landing/approach/decent of the TU-154 plane. Was the film he recorded the true cause of Knyż's death? The media did not look for the answer. TVN, the employer of the deceased operator, published only a short announcement about his death.

 

6. On 6 June 2010, Professor Marek Dulinicz died in a car crash. He was the head of the archaeology department, which was to leave for Smolensk soon to commence research at the Tu-154M crash site. Dulinicz was to be the initiator of this expedition. He was actively trying to accelerate the matter. The archaeology mission in Smolensk took place five months after his death. The research, works and findings of the Polish archaeologists sent to Smolensk were conducted for the purpose of the Russian, not the Polish Prosecution, meaning that each and every finding that constituted evidence in the investigation to determine the causes of the crash had to be handed over to the Russians immediately. The death of Dulinicz was not reported in the context of other mysterious deaths after the crash.


7. In June 2010 Siergiej Tretjakov dies in the United States. A refugee from Russia, former KGB and SVR agent, who started working with the Americans in 2000. According to the reporters of the Italian weekly “L'Espresso”, as also subsequently reported by “Nasza Polska”, international observers do not believe the death of the former SVR agent was due to natural causes, who was to die of a heart attack (at one time it was reported that he died after choking on a piece of meat). From the documents published by WikiLeaks it follows that agent Tretjakov corresponded with the Stratfor editor in chief. In the correspondence, he reconstructed the events of 10 April 2010 near Smolensk. 12 days after the crash he stated: “The Russians have such plans (scenarios), to kill other western leaders, and possible to be executed and performed”. Tretjakov also noted that bad relations between Vladimir Putin and Lech Kaczyński were not a secret. The topic was picked up by the foreign media, but the Polish media kept silent.

 

8. On 15 October 2010 the body of Eugeniusz Wróbel was found cut into pieces in the Rybnicki Lake. This Smolensk-related death seems to be the most dramatic and inspires the most questions. Wróbel was an outstanding expert, working among other on aviation matters. In some fields, he was recognized as the best specialist in Poland. His expertise concerned the computer air traffic control systems, precise satellite navigation for aviation, aviation law and regulations. He was the deputy minister for transport in Law and Justice (PiS) government. According to the findings of the Prosecution, he was killed and cut up by his own son, who later firstly admitted to the murder, but later denied it. The son was immediately declared insane and isolated for psychiatric observation. Until Wróbel's death, his model family was a considered exemplary. Nothing pointed out to the mental illness of the son. The room, in which he was to commit the murder, had no traces proving that he cut his father up in there using a saw. It is hard to imagine one cutting his own father up with a saw, and later restores the room to perfect cleanliness. His mother, a psychiatrist, failed to notice the poor condition of the “mentally ill” son. Minister Wróbel, the expert at the parliamentary commission analysing the causes of the Smolensk crash, managed to formulate a lot of critical opinions about the crash. He believed that the remnants of the plane, stored in Smolensk, are actually the remnants of Tu-154 M 102, not 101. Eugeniusz Wróbel was to express his beliefs in private conversations with his friends. The information appeared in certain circles before his death.

 

9. Dariusz Szpineta, a professional pilot and piloting instructor, expert and president of the aviation company AD Astra Executive Charter SA, was found dead in the bathroom of a holiday resort in India in December 2011, whilst on holiday - a death by hanging. He also wrote a famous article at niezależna.pl, entitled: Operation “Smolensk Lie”, in which he proved that the flight to Smolensk was a military flight, and not a civil one as concluded by the Russian and Polish governmental investigation reports into the cause of the crash. Before his death, he spoke to the media a few times about Smolensk, questioning the official findings. His 13 friends from the group that went to India say that before his death he was in a good mood. At this time, one of the Polish special forces units were present in India taking part in specialised trainings. http://youtu.be/phTPN_oftr0


10. In 2011, an officer of the Military Counter-intelligence Service, working with the ICT Support and Command Centre of the Navy in Wejherowo committed was found dead hanged. The soldier had the highest access to confidential materials.

 

11. On 6 June 2011, a former communication department employee at LOT died. He knew the details of the operation of the ACARS system in Poland. After the crash of two Polish light aircrafts in Asturia, in the north of Spain, on 6 June 2011, the media reported that the list of deceased included a famous Polish architect, Stefan Kuryłowicz.  According to one of the aviation experts, what was not reported, though, was the fact that one of the victims was a former communication department employee at LOT. Tu-154M had a device on board, which contains the answers to the question, what was happening with the plane in its last moments, working with i.e. the on-board FMS computer and the terrain Awareness and Warning System.


12. The Head of Federal Security Service from Tver,  general Constantin Moryev, who interrogated the tower controllers in Smolensk, died at he end of August 2011 and his death had been considered to be a suicide. The circle of persons whose statements could attribute the guilt for the crash to the employees of the Russian control tower was thus dramatically reduced. His body was found in his office. It was determined that he had shot himself with his duty weapon. Although he had not left any goodbye letter, the investigators immediately adopted the suicide version. Moryev was appointed to serve in Tver, to which the Sieviernyj Airport in Smolensk reports to, in 2007. Major Victor Ryzhenko and lieutenant Nicolay Krasnokutski, the officers who on April 10th, 2010 were in the airport control tower in Smolensk, also served there.


13. General Sławomir Petelicki, founder and former head of the “Grom” unit. He was found dead on 16 June 2012. On numerous occasions he openly criticised the findings of the State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation and the fact that the Polish government was dilatory in establishing the causes of the Smolensk crash. After the crash, General Sławomir Petelicki stated to the press that politicians from the governing party (Civic Platform) received a text message with instructions on what to say: The crash was caused by the pilots, who went down below 100 meters. It remains to be determined who made them do it. According to Petelicki, the author of the text message was one of three: Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister Tomasz Arabski or the government spokesperson, Paweł Graś. Petelicki had a lot of information about these people, he often pointed out who should be dismissed from a certain position, and who should be appointed instead to make the Poland-NATO relations tighter. He died from shooting wounds. At the beginning, media reported 4 shots in the back, later correcting the reports to 1 shot. First it was reported that it was a shot to the temple, then to the face, and later – “a shot to the head”. In the end the media reported a shot to the back of the head. If it is true that Sławomir Petelicki “shot himself in the back of the head” and as a result of the shot, the medulla oblongata was damaged or broken, we are certain that the Russians are responsible (GRU). A shot to the back of the head, into the medulla oblongata, is intended to cause short but unimaginable pain before death. Actually, the body shuts down due to unimaginable pain. It is a killing technique combined with incurring pain typical for the Soviets.


14. The ensign Remigiusz Muś died during the night from Saturday to Sunday 27 October 2012. He was a major witness in the Smolensk investigation, an on-board technician of Jak-40 plane that carried journalists, landing at the Smolensk airport on 10 April 2010, shortly before the Smolensk crash (thus landing at the Smolensk an hour before the Tu154M crash). The Spokesperson of the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, Dariusz Ślepakura, informed that supposedly there were no traces on the body that would indicate participation of third parties. However, no farewell letter was found, which could indicate that the ensign committed suicide. Muś was another important witness in the Smolensk investigation, who died in mysterious circumstances. Remigiusz Muś revealed for example that during their decent and approach for landing, on April 10th, the tower controller ordered them to go down to 50 meters. The on-board technician from Jak-40 ensured that he heard an identical command given to the crew of TU-154M by the control tower (He was listening in from a head set within the Jak-40 cockpit). Remigiusz Muś, who was a crew member of Jak-40 together with Lieutenant Artur Wosztyl (first pilot) and Lieutenant Rafał Koleczko, also said that he heard two explosions just before the crash of the presidential Tupolev plane. At the time he stated he was unable to recognise the source and cause of the explosions.


15. Professor Urbanowicz, 61 years old, died two days after a report was published, that the State Election Committee servers were located in Russia and operated by Russian IT specialists. Preliminary results of elections were transferred to Russia, filtered and then returned to Poland. He was the co-organiser of the first expert Smolensk conference: http://smolenskcrash.eu/news-45-lets-allow-the-evidence-to-speak-for-itself.html


16. In November 2012, an officer of the Government Protection Bureau (BOR), Adam A., a bomb disposal expert, died in Kazakhstan. Until August 2012 he secured the governmental planes Tu-154M. Lieutenant Adam A was not on the list of BOR officers allocated to secure the Polish delegations to Katyn on 7 and 10 April 2010 – Adam A. did not participate in the reception of the Tu-154M plane repaired in the Russian Samara in December 2009. However, before and after, the BOR bomb disposal experts inspected Tu-154M planes, used by the state delegations. In August 2012 he was allocated to secure the Polish consulate in Alma Ata. Adam A. died in Alma Ata. He was beaten up two days before his death. Warsaw's Prosecutor's Office is now conducting an investigation to determine the causes of his death.

 

17. Krzysztof Zalewski - found dead on December 10th, 2012 - was investigating the Smolensk crash, an expert in the area of aviation, a journalist and a military historian, who issued numerous statements on the above-mentioned crash was murdered in Warsaw. Krzysztof Zalewski was the vice-president of the company Magnum-X issuing magazines dedicated to the military issues as well as the former editor-in-chief of the “Lotnictwo” (Aviation) magazine. He became known more widely as the author of comments on the Smolensk crash. His analyses - in-depth, interesting and factual - always facilitated better understanding of complicated technical issues. He was not afraid to criticise official findings and presentations. He was also one of the protagonists of the documentary entitled "10.04.10" by Anita Gargas. He criticised the reports of the Interstate Aviation Committee and Jerzy Miller’s Committee. He was the guest at the Smolensk Conference, organized on the 22nd Ocotober 2012.

 

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Please watch the actual footage from minutes after the plane crash, recorded with a mobile phone, by an eye witness who happened to be on site of the crash. Due to many discrepancies related to this footage it cannot be determined who took and recorded this video, nor their whereabouts. http://youtu.be/4rn4YXinczw

 

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"The dismantlement of the state is over, now people will start to disappear." - Janusz Kurtyka, President of the Institute of National Remembrance (died in Smolensk Russia on 10th April 2010)