Key witness in Polish presidential plane crash dies foulplay suspected

 

Polish President Lech Kaczynski's Tu-154 aircraft debris (RIA Novosti / Oleg Mineev)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/polish-president-crash-suicide-483/

A Polish parliamentary investigation into President’s Lech Kaczynski plane crash in Smolensk in 2010 is considering witness protection: A flight engineer set to deliver critical testimony was found hanged in his house in Warsaw.

­The body of Remigiusz Muś, a 42-year-old aviation engineer, was found by his wife in the cellar of their house in the suburbs of the Polish capital at around 11:30pm local time on Saturday. She called an ambulance and attempted to resuscitate her husband, but medics pronounced him dead as soon as they arrived. An autopsy is set for Monday, October 29.

As news of Muś’ death hit headlines, the head of the Polish parliamentary commission looking into the crash, Antoni Macierewicz, said that Muś was one of two key witnesses in the case. With Muś dead, key witness Artur Wosztyl should be put in protective custody, Macierewicz said.

Dariusz Slepokura, a spokesperson for the Warsaw district prosecutor's office, said on Monday that Muś likely committed suicide.

Muś’ suicide has become the second incident of its kind connected to the investigation of the April 10, 2010, plane crash in Smolensk that killed the Polish president and 95 other people aboard. In January 2012, a Polish prosecutor involved in the investigation shot himself for no apparent reason during a media briefing. Prosecutor Mikolaj Przybyl told reporters he needed a break, and ordered them to leave the briefing room. Immediately after they left, Przybyl shot himself. Doctors managed to save his life, as his brain was not damaged by the self-inflicted wound.

Muś arrived to Smolensk on a Polish Yak-40 airliner carrying the Polish press pool one hour before the President’s plane crashed. Shortly after the incident, Muś retired from aviation.

The catastrophe devastated Polish leadership, as most of the country’s top political, military, financial and religious leaders were on the same flight to Smolensk to commemorate Polish officers imprisoned and brought to the USSR in 1939. The prisoners were later executed in the forests of Katyn, around 14 kilometers west of the city of Smolensk.

During the investigation, Muś testified that he witnessed the ground control in Smolensk communicating with the pilots of the president’s airplane.

Muś claimed that while he rested in the cabin of the plane, he overheard a Russian air traffic control officer giving the president’s plane permission to descend to a ‘landing decision’ height of 50 meters. Muś said that earlier, the aircraft in which he was flying was given the same permission to descend to 50 meters, despite the dense fog covering the Smolensk region that day.

Muś’ testimony contradicted the official version, which said that the traffic controller only allowed the airplane to descend to 100 meters.

The official statement prompted a wide-ranging international investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee, which included experts from Russia, Poland and the US According to the official narrative delivered by the Committee, the crash of Poland’s presidential plane was largely caused by human error and bad weather. The pilots were warned of heavy fog and low visibility at Smolensk military airfield, and were asked to reroute to a different airport.

The pilot nevertheless made the decision to land. The investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee revealed that in addition to the severe weather conditions, the pilots had been subjected to pressure by some of the high-ranking passengers onboard. Transcripts from the plane’s black box revealed the pilots were forced to land as soon as possible. The recording also showed that one oficial entered the cockpit many times throughout the flight, and that the Chief of the Air Force of Poland was present in the cockpit at the time of the crash.

 

‘Wake up, Poland!’: Thousands take to streets in Warsaw for antigovernment protest

People demonstrate on September 29, 2012 in Warsaw against Poland's centrist government in a rally called by unions, an ultra-Catholic movement and politicians (AFP Photo / Janek Skarzynski)

Source: Russia Today

Tens of thousands of people marched through the capital of Poland on Saturday in protest over government reforms and a new law that raises the retirement age, and in solidarity with the Catholic Church, which was recently stripped of its TV station.

­Dubbed 'Wake Up, Poland,' the rally was organized by the country's conservative Law and Justice opposition party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the trade union Solidarity and other groups. The event was Poland's biggest demonstration in several months.

Thousands of participants gather at mass before a march against government policies organized by main right-wing opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) and Solidarnosc trade union at Three Crosses Square in Warsaw September 29, 2012 (Reuters / Kacper Pempel)

­Addressing protesters gathered in Warsaw's Castle Square, Kaczynski said that, “These huge crowds mean strength. They mean that Poland has awakened. More and more Poles will be awakening. The cup of evil has overflowed. We Poles, we Polish patriots say ‘no,’” Reuters reported.

A key issue for the protesters is a new retirement law enacted by the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk that will gradually raise the country's retirement age to 67, from 60 for women and 65 for men. The change will be phased in for men by 2020 and for women by 2040. Starting in 2013, the retirement age will be increased by three months every year. The law is the subject of furious public debate throughout the country.

A participant is seen with a taped mouth as a sign of a silent protest during a march against government policies organized by main right-wing opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) and Solidarnosc trade union in Warsaw September 29, 2012 (Reuters / Kacper Pempel)

­Participants also expressed anger at a decision by the Polish National Broadcasting Council to strip a Catholic TV station, TV Trwam, of its right to broadcast digitally for free. Protesters claimed the move was a blow to freedom of expression and an attempt to silence their conservative Catholic worldview.

According to an AP report, the broadcasting council claimed the station lost its transmission rights because of a lack of transparency in its funding.

"Our presence here is a sign of opposition to the discrimination against Catholic media and TV Trwam," leading conservative politician Zbigniew Ziobro told protesters, the AP reported.

The rally was nonviolent, with many protesters singing patriotic and religious songs and holding up rosaries and portraits of the Virgin Mary. Before the protest march, a Catholic Mass was held at Three Crosses Square in downtown Warsaw.

Demonstrators hold Polish national flags during an opposition rally in Warsaw on September 29, 2012 (AFP Photo / Janek Skarzynski)

A boy holds a Polish national flag as thousands of participants gather at mass before a march against government policies organized by main right-wing opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) and Solidarnosc trade union at Three Crosses Square in Warsaw September 29, 2012 (Reuters / Kacper Pempel)

US to station troops in Poland for first time

US army troops conduct a landing operation during the multinational exercise with participation of seven NATO countries including Poland. (File photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/26/252826/us-to-send-troops-to-poland-for-1st-time/

The United States is set to send a group of military forces to Poland for the first time to support fighter jets and transport planes.

The air force detachment "will arrive this fall to support quarterly F-16 and C-130 deployments beginning in 2013 and will be the first US forces stationed on Polish soil," the Pentagon said in a Wednesday statement.

Warsaw accepted to host rotations of F-16 and Hercules aircraft in 2010 and that the military planes to be deployed in Poland on a rotating basis as of 2013.

"The arrival of this detachment will mark a new step forward in the relationship between United States and Poland and enable closer military cooperation," Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
The Pentagon has in the past said that the interests of the US and NATO would be best served by moving F-16 fighter jets from Italy to Poland.
Poland is also expected to host a NATO missile system by 2018

Confirmed: CIA secret prison in Poland

A guard shuts the gate to the airport in Szymany in northeastern Poland (Reuters / Forum / Tomasz Marek)

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/poland-cia-secret-prison-968/

Another CIA-run interrogation 'black site' has been exposed after the confessions of top-ranking Polish officials blew the lid on the dirtiest secret in Eastern Europe.

The former head of Poland’s intelligence service secret Zbigniew Siemiatkowski has been charged with taking part in establishing a secret prison for the CIA in a remote part of the country. Allegedly, foreign prisoners in the detention center were tortured in connection with America's global war on terror.

Siemiatkowski refused to comment on the matter, citing the country's secrecy laws. However, he did not deny the report.

Rumors about Poland hosting a CIA-run prison had circulated for years, though the country's authorities dismissed them as absurd. However, the UN and the Council of Europe had long claimed they had evidence of the site’s existence.

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller both repeatedly denied the knowledge of the prison.

The official investigation into a CIA-run prison in Poland started in 2008, three years after Donald Tusk took office. It has taken just as long for evidence of the site to come to light.

Allegedly, a secret interrogation facility for terror suspects was operating in Stare Kiejkuty, a small village in remote Poland, from December 2002 to the fall of 2003, “depriving prisoners of war of their freedom” and “allowing corporal punishment.”

Earlier, two prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah, claimed they were prisoners at this ‘black site.’ Polish prosecutors have already given the two “victim status”.

Among other possible detainees are self-proclaimed 9/11 terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, perpetrator of the 2000 USS Cole bombing Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and Palestinian terror suspect Abu Zubaydah.

According to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, up to eight prisoners underwent “extraordinary rendition” to be tortured in Poland.

The harsh interrogation techniques used by the American spooks included waterboarding, starvation, cooling of the body, visual and acoustic deprivation for extended periods of time, slamming prisoners against walls, and mock execution, among many other methods.

Naturally, torture is not allowed in any European country, Poland included. If it is proven that Poland did in fact allow torture to take place at a CIA facility in their country, the matter could be taken before the European Court of Human Rights. The prosecution of Polish and American agents would also remain a distinct possibility.

“We can think about Polish intelligence officers who most probably somehow collaborated with the CIA in establishing this site. We can think about the CIA officers, because if they made it [tortures] in the territory of Poland – it is a crime,” human rights lawyer and head of the legal division at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights Dr Adam Bodnar told RT.

“But as you most probably know, the US authorities would not give any data regarding them and would not allow them to be extradited,” he concluded.

Never ever again in Poland?

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk fully supports the high-profile case against the former senior official.

Tusk charged that Poland has become a “political victim” of US officials.

“This may be painful, but concrete evidence that Poland is no longer a country where politicians can fix something under the table and expect it not to [eventually] come out — even if they do so with the world’s greatest superpower," Tusk stated.

In fact, the Polish PM was left no other choice but to recognize the existence of the CIA prison in his country. Tusk charged that Poland has become the “political victim” of US officials leaking some aspects of their bilateral relations.

“Poland is a democracy where national and international law must be observed,” Poland’s PM stated, demanding an investigation into the matter. “Let there be no doubt about it either in Poland or on the other side of the ocean,” he said harshly.

“Poland will no longer be a country where politicians, even if they are working arm-in-arm with the world's greatest superpower, could make some deal somewhere under the table and then it would never see daylight,” he said in reference to the ongoing investigation which is meant to ensure that nothing like this will happen in Poland again.

The US never disclosed the whereabouts of the so-called “black sites,” but human rights groups named Afghanistan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Thailand as the most likely hosts.

Lithuania was the first country in Europe to admit it had allowed the CIA to establish two secret detention facilities in 2002-2006.

In November 2011, Lithuania faced a lawsuit for hosting a secret CIA prison on its soil when Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, claimed he was detained and tortured there.

Poland agrees to host US airbase

US Ambassador Lee Feinstein (L) and Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich (R) sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation of the Polish and US Air Forces on Polish soil in Warsaw on June 13

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/184574.html

Poland and the United States have signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of a permanent US military base on Polish soil.

The two NATO allies signed the accord in Warsaw on Monday, according to which the US Air Force will station troops and aircraft in Poland starting in 2013, Reuters reported.

"This memorandum of understanding means that by the end of 2012 we will have in Poland a detachment allowing for the permanent rotation of American military aircraft, both combat and transport aircraft," Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said after the signing ceremony with the US ambassador to Poland, Lee Feinstein.

"From 2013 we plan the regular and periodic presence of aircraft and the training of pilots four times a year," Klich added.

The US Air Force Aviation Detachment will be the first US troops to ever be permanently stationed in the country.

The deal, which was endorsed by US President Barack Obama during his trip to Poland in late May, provides support for an air detachment to train Polish pilots to fly F-16 warplanes and C-130 transport planes.

Twenty US servicemen are also expected to deploy to Poland in 2012 to maintain the aircraft.

During his visit to Warsaw, Obama and Polish leaders also confirmed plans for Poland to host SM-3 interceptors from 2018 under a US missile defense program.

US to set up permanent base in Poland

F-16 Fighting Falcons from Aviano Air Base, Italy

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179073.html

US President Barack Obama will reportedly announce the establishment of a US air detachment in Poland during his upcoming visit to the European state.

Poland's leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily cited an unnamed Polish diplomatic source on Monday as saying that Washington would announce the transfer of an F-16 base from Aviano in Italy to the Lask air field in central Poland during his May 27-28 visit.

Poland's Defense Minister Bogdan Klich also said on Monday that both sides would be ready for the agreement.

"At the moment we are holding talks with the Americans on the topic of a detailed agreements that will govern on what basis the Air Detachment - the detachment that will permanently service the F-16 and Hercules crews and land personnel periodically visiting Poland - will be stationed on our territory," he was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency as saying.

Last year, Klich said he hoped the F-16 rotations would begin in 2013.

In 2010, the White House confirmed the "establishment of a US air detachment in Poland to support the periodic rotation of US military aircraft."

Meanwhile, Russia warned Poland against hosting US fighter jets, saying it would counter the move

'Russia against NATO missile proposal'

Russia's Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166590.html

Russia's Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin says Moscow is against the alliance's proposal to set up two different missile systems, the NATO system and the Russian system.

The United States and Russia have been at loggerheads over a new anti-ballistic missile system for Europe, with Moscow calling for a shared control of the system, and Washington refusing to share the responsibility for protecting its member-states with any third party, a Press TV correspondent in Moscow reported Tuesday.

NATO favors two separate but coordinated missile defense systems, which include the NATO and Russian systems. However, Moscow insists on a European system together with the alliance, with joint centers for detecting threats and a joint decision-making procedure.

Meanwhile, Rogozin, who has recently been appointed as the Kremlin's special representative for missile defense talks with NATO member-states, frowned upon the idea on Tuesday.

"Russia should either join the European missile defense system, or receive guarantees that this system will be no threat to its strategic interests," he stated.

The Russian envoy further noted that Moscow sees no missile threats in northern Europe, and the two sides regard each other as potential threats, and that would prevent the cooperation from going forward.

"NATO and Russia must negotiate and agree to give up military planning against each other. This fundamental deal will lift all other problems," Rogozin added.

US President Barack Obama, on the other hand, has vehemently rejected shared control of the missile system on the grounds that it would give Russia responsibility for protecting NATO from nuclear missile threats.

The two sides have agreed to formulate terms for cooperation by June as a special group under Rogozin is set to be formed to coordinate missile defense talks with NATO.

Moscow is fiercely opposed to the deployment of the alliance's missile systems near its borders, saying it would threaten its national security and destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.

Kremlin has warned if NATO ploughs ahead with its plans and no agreement is reached with Moscow, it would develop its own missile systems.

US to deploy SM-3s in Poland

A US destroyer launching an SM-3, file photo

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/154621.html


US President Barack Obama has committed his country to deploying SM-3 missile interceptors in Poland to replace the controversial Bush-era program.

The commitment came after Obama met his visiting Polish counterpart, Bronislaw Komorowski, at the White House on Wednesday.

It was agreed that the land-based missile interceptors will be deployed in Poland in the 2018 timeframe as part of America's NATO-wide missile system. The agreement follows a treaty signed by both countries' officials in Prague in April.

The missile system will be deployed in four stages beginning next year and would be capable of intercepting long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"President Komorowski expressed Poland's strong support for the prompt ratification of the new START treaty, as it would bolster Polish and European security and contribute to the Non- Proliferation Treaty's disarmament goals," a joint statement said.

The treaty is part of White House's efforts to reset relations with Russia.

The Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) has a range of 500 kilometers but can be enhanced for longer distances.

The missile was used by the US Navy to destroy a satellite 130 miles (209 km) above the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008.

Russia warns US on altering missile shield plans

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122602&sectionid=351020602

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has underlined Moscow's right to walk out of a nuclear disarmament treaty with the US should Washington alter its so-called missile shield defense system.

"Russia has the right to withdraw from the strategic nuclear weapons treaty if a quantitative and qualitative increase in US strategic missile defense significantly influences the effectiveness of Russian strategic nuclear forces," Lavrov stressed on Tuesday.

Earlier, the foreign minister said that the revised US plans, which comprise of sea-based interceptors and shorter range land-based missiles, pose no threat to the country's strategic interests or nuclear forces in their current form.

Lavrov's comments come ahead of the signing of a successor to the START I strategic arms reduction treaty that expired on December 5.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama will meet on Thursday to pen the new accord in the Czech capital, Prague.

The missile shield system, introduced under former US president George W. Bush, came at a time when diplomatic relations between the two nuclear powers were at their post-Cold War record low.

However, amid bilateral efforts to rebuild trust, the Obama administration shelved the former plans that envisaged land-based missile systems in ex-Soviet states.

Poland to host US missiles by 'early April'

Source: PressTV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119214&sectionid=351020606

After months of speculation, Poland is finally set to host controversial US Patriot missiles and a contingent of American troops to man them by April.

"The Defense Ministry expects the first stage of the stationing of a Patriot battery and a 100-man service team to get under way in the (northern) town of Morag at the turn of April," PAP news agency reported on Sunday.

The Patriots are part of a new US decision to deploy a missile system in central Europe.

Bulgaria and Romania are also in talks with the White House on hosting elements of its missile system on their soil.

The new deal was set up after Washington scrapped an earlier plan agreed upon in 2008 for deploying radar and interceptor missiles in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic.

The new plan, like the Bush-era deal, has been vehemently opposed by Russia, which considers both threats to its national security.

In return Moscow has warned that it would beef up its naval base across the border from Poland in its Baltic enclave Kaliningrad.

It has also threatened to deploy the tactical Iskander missile system in the Black Sea region.

The Iskander missile system is equipped with two solid-propellant single-stage 9M723K1 guided missiles with "quasi-ballistic" capability. The missiles have a range of 400 km (250 miles) and can reportedly carry conventional and nuclear warheads.

US Draws Russian Fire, Signing Missile Defense Deal

Prague - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed Tuesday what she called a "landmark" missile defense deal with the Czech Republic, drawing immediate condemnation and threats from Russia. The accord permits the siting of a tracking radar station on Czech soil as part of an extended US missile shield that Washington says is necessary to ward off potential attacks by so-called "rogue" states such as Iran. Moscow immediately threatened to respond with "military resources" to what it sees as a threat on its doorstep from the proposed system.

"If a US strategic anti-missile shield is deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military resources," a statement from the foreign ministry said.

But the United States said Wednesday that Russia and Europe should be "equal partners" in its planned missile defense.

"We seek strategic cooperation on preventing missiles from rogue nations, like Iran, from threatening our friends and allies," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "We will continue to have a dialogue with the Russians."

"We want to design a system between the United States, Russia and Europe, with everyone participating as equal partners," Johndroe said on the margins of a rich nation summit at Toyako in northern Japan.

"It's truly a landmark agreement," Rice said after signing the accord with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. "It is an agreement that is befitting for friends and allies who face a common threat in the 21st century."

During her talks in Prague, Rice charged that Iran's work to build longer-range missiles was proceeding "apace" while at the same time it was defying international calls to halt sensitive nuclear technology.

"Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat," the top US diplomat warned.

Rice also reiterated Washington's position that the radar station was not aimed at Russia and instead served as a "building block" for not just Czech and US security but for the "international community as a whole."

The United States wants the radar twinned with interceptor missiles in neighbouring Poland, although negotiations with Warsaw have becomed bogged down with Polish demands for additional security guarantees.

Rice said she thought it made no sense to visit Poland during her current tour of Europe because gaps remained in the negotiations.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had already clashed with US President George W. Bush over missile defence at their first face-to- face meeting, during the G8 summit in Japan on Monday.

Analysts say the Russians fear not only a potential long-term threat to their own nuclear deterrent and the security of their airspace but also associate the shield with NATO's enlargement to include Ukraine and Georgia.

NATO endorsed the US missile defense plan at its April summit in Bucharest.
The US has in the past suggested that Russian inspectors could visit the anti-missile sites, as long as Prague and Warsaw agreed.

"We want the system to be transparent to the Russians," Rice insisted Tuesday.
Protestors from Greenpeace, who fear the missile shield will trigger a new arms race, unrolled a massive image of a target on one of the hills overlooking Prague ahead of Rice's arrival.

Opinion polls regularly show around two-thirds of Czech opposed to hosting the US radar.

Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Prague's central Wenceslas Square, with banners proclaiming "No to the Radar" and "Resign."

But Schwarzenberg expected the deal to be ratified by parliament.

"There are sufficient lawmakers who are sufficiently aware of their responsibility and will go forward in strength during the voting," he told reporters.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said the deal reflected a "joint desire to protect the free world."

Prague was the first leg of a three-country tour that will take Rice to Bulgaria and Georgia where she will renew US support for Tbilisi's bid for NATO membership - another bone of contention with Moscow.

Truthout link
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-draws-russian-fire-signing-missile-defence-deal