EU 83: Letter from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

to the Chairman

 

Thank you for your letter of 26 January regarding your Committee's recent visit to Poland, and representations received regarding the Death of General Wladyslaw Sikorski.

I can confirm that the position stated in Ambassador Todd's letter of August 2008 remains that of the British Government. In short, this is that General Sikorski died in a plane accident in Gibraltar in 1943. The British Government has already released all documents in its archives relating to the circumstances of General Sikorski's death, including the report of the 1943 Royal Air Force Commission of Inquiry and 1969 Report of the investigation into the accident. Nothing is being withheld.

I can therefore confirm that all documents have been released and are freely available at the National Archives. Further to this, test results released on 29 January following the exhumation of the General's remains confirmed both that the remains were genuinely those of the General, and that he died in the crashing of his plane on take off from Gibraltar.

The Polish Prime Minister also raised this issue with my Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister on 24 November. My Rt Hon Friend has since written to PM Tusk repeating his assurance that all documents are in the public domain and offering to facilitate the visit of a group of Polish Historians to the Archives to be taken through the documents held there.

 

22 February 2009