Thaw between two countries united in grief over 10 April disaster threatened by claims that Russian soldiers stole credit cards from body
Luke Harding in Moscow
Russia and Poland's newfound solidarity was today under severe strain following claims that Russian soldiers stole the credit cards of one of the victims of April's plane crash that wiped out much of Poland's leadership.
Polish authorities said that Russia had detained four soldiers on suspicion of looting credit cards from the body of Andrzej Przewoznik, a historian and top Polish official. Przewoznik perished with 95 other people, including Poland's president Lech Kaczynski, when their plane went down in thick fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia.
According to Warsaw, Przewoznik's card was used to withdraw money from a cashpoint within hours of the catastrophe. Further withdrawals were made from four Smolensk cash machines over the next two days. Przewoznik's widow raised the alarm when she discovered around 6,000 zloty (€1,400) had vanished from her dead husband's bank account.
Today Polish television reported that credit cards belonging to another plane crash victim, Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat, the deputy head of the Law and Justice party, had also disappeared. No transactions were recorded, however.
Poland's government spokesman Pawel Gras initially blamed Russia's OMON riot police for the thefts. Yesterday he said the culprits had been arrested following a fast-moving joint investigation. "The three OMON officers who did this shameful deed were detained with lightning speed thanks to co-operation between the [Polish] internal security agency and Russian special services," Gras declared.
