Chimp remark angers Poles

POLES are fuming over a Russian aviation official’s remark that even if a chimpanzee had been running the control tower the day their president’s plane crashed in Russia the disaster would still be entirely their fault.

Media and officials widely condemned Oleg Smirnov’s remarks, broadcast live in Poland to a public still hurting over the April death of their president and 95 others — and indignant that a Russian report released last month placed the blame squarely on their countrymen.

Defence Minister Bogdan Klich called the remarks “propaganda,” while the Super Express tabloid said that “Russians again slander the Polish pilots.”