Russia Confirms Four Servicemen Stole Bank Cards at Kaczynski's Air Crash Site

Russian investigators confirmed on Tuesday that charges had been brought against four servicemen accused of stealing bank cards from a top Polish official who died in the plane crash that killed Polish leader Lech Kaczynski.

Photo: Russia Confirms Four Servicemen Stole Bank Cards at Kaczynski's Air Crash Site

Russian Investigation Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said S.A. Syrov, I.V. Pustovar, A.S. Pankratov and Y.S. Sankov were charged with using the bank cards of Andrzej Przewoznik.

Markin said that "neither police nor OMON nor Interior Ministry officers have anything to do with this," adding that the four servicemen were conscripts, RIA Novosti reports.

The four servicemen assigned to guard the crash scene near the Smolensk airport have admitted withdrawing 60,345 rubles ($1,890) using the stolen cards, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office said today on its website. The soldiers are being held at their military base.

The Warsaw prosecutors’ office, which requested assistance from Russia after it started the investigation, said the money was withdrawn from the account of the late Andrzej Przewoznik, head of a national historical institute.

The April 10 crash in Smolensk, Russia, killed 96 people who were on their way to honor the 22,000 Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s secret police in the Katyn forest and other sites in 1940, BusinessWeek says.