Poland reburies former president after body mix-up

WARSAW - Agence France-Presse

The reburial ceremony for Ryszard Kaczorowski. EPA Photo

Poland has reburied the body of its last leader-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski after a mix-up over the remains of some victims of a 2010 presidential plane crash in Russia that killed 96 people including the then head of state.
 
Kaczorowski's body was exhumed last month and was determined to have been misidentified by a Polish diplomat at the scene of the disaster in Smolensk in western Russia which claimed the lives of dozens of dignitaries including president Lech Kaczynski.
 
Kaczorowski, the last president of the London-based exiled government which was set up during World War II and remained until Poland's communist regime crumbled in 1989, was reburied on Saturday at a funeral mass in Warsaw.
 
In September, investigators confirmed that the body of 1980s anti-communist opposition icon Anna Walentynowicz -- a founder of the Solidarity trade union -- had also been switched with the remains of another crash victim.
 
Poland's conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- identical twin and political ally of Lech Kaczynski -- has repeatedly accused the country's centrist government of failing to hold Russia to account for the crash.
 
The plane went down on April 10, 2010 as it tried to land in fog at the airport in Smolensk ahead of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet slaying of thousands of Polish prisoners of war.
 
All 96 people on board died, and while pilot error and the aging facilities at the airport were ruled to be behind the crash, many in Poland give credence to conspiracy theories blaming age-old foe Moscow.
 
Polish prosecutors last week denied reports that traces of explosives had been found on the wreckage.