Duda pays tribute to late presidential couple
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, paid homage on Easter Monday to the late presidential couple who had died in an air disaster near Smolensk, Russia, 13 years ago.
"Thirteen years have passed since that day on April 10, 2010," Duda said at the tomb of the late Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria at the Wawel Castle cathedral in the southern city of Krakow.
Speaking about the late presidential couple and all the people who died in the air crash, Duda said that "they were people of merit who had done much for Poland."
Having expressed regret that they could not continue their work for the homeland, Duda declared that "we have been doing our best to continue their projects, I hope, just like they wanted to."
The aircraft carrying President Kaczynski, his wife and dozens of senior government officials and commanders of the Polish armed forces crashed as it came in to land at a military airfield near Somlensk, in western Russia, at 8:41 a.m., on April 10, 2010.
The delegation was on its way to nearby Katyn to attend events marking the 70th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn Massacre, in which close to 22,000 Polish POWs, mainly army officers, policemen and administrative staff, were murdered at the hands of the Soviets.
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party decided to move the main commemorations of the Somlensk air crash anniversary to Sunday, April 16, as April 10 is falling this year on Easter Monday. (PAP)
