Poles to Pay Tribute to Kaczynski

The body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski is to lie in state in the capital Warsaw as the nation mourns the victims of the Smolensk air crash. Kaczynski and 95 others, including many top defense officials and public figures, died when their jet crashed in the Russian city of Smolensk en route to the memorial for the Polish victims of a World War II massacre by Soviet secret police at Katyn.

According to BBC News other victims are being identified by relatives who flew to Moscow, where the bodies have been placed in morgues. Russian investigators suspect pilot error caused the crash. They say the pilots were warned that they were flying too low just before the plane clipped tree-tops in heavy fog, as it was coming in to land at an air base on Saturday morning.

An outpouring of grief has been seen in Polish communities across the world and the country is observing a week of public mourning. Monday is also a day of mourning in Russia, whose relations with its western neighbor were troubled for centuries.
Poland has moved to fill some of the gaps left by the disaster, appointing an acting head of the central bank, while the presidential post has been filled by the parliamentary speaker pending a new election.

Commentators in Poland have stressed the irony that so many senior figures were killed making a visit to commemorate victims of a massacre which targeted the elite of Poland's officer corps.