Twin Brother of Deceased Poland President Arrives at Crash Scene
World | April 10, 2010, Saturday // 20:25| viewsA file picture dated August 1, 2005 shows twin brothers Lech Kaczynski (R) and Jaroslaw Kaczynski (L) in Warsaw. Photo by BGNES
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the identical twin brother of deceased Poland President Lech Kaczynski, is due to arrive shortly at the plane crash site where the President died Saturday.
The news is reported by the Russian news agency “Novosti.”
The Poland plane will land in the Belorussian city of Vitebsk, which is the closest airport to one in Russia’s Smolensk, where the crash happened around 11 am Moscow time.
Polish experts, who will take part in the probe of the crash, are also on the same flight.
The Belorussian Foreign Ministry announced they will let all passengers s enter the country without the otherwise required visas. The same will apply for all Polish citizens traveling to Smolensk from Belorussian.
Poland’s President, Lech Kaczynski, who was due to visit Smolensk to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which Soviet troops killed thousands of Poles, died Saturday when the government TU-154 plane crashed near the airport of the Russian city.
According to latest reports, all 96 passengers and crew died. The delegation included top politicians, clergy and military men, among them the Governor of the Polish Central Bank, the Army’s Chief of Staff, former ministers, Members of the Parliament, deputy ministers, relatives of the 1940 Katyn victims, intellectuals.
The brothers first shot to fame at the age of 12 as stars in the film "Two Boys Who Stole the Moon".
Lech followed Jaroslaw into the anti-government movement in the late 1970s and served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard during the August 1980 Solidarity-led protests. He was arrested under martial law in 1981.
The brothers found themselves outside mainstream politics in the early 1990s after falling out with the Solidarity leader, and then Polish President, Lech Walesa.
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