Poland marks anniversary of president's death in plane crash

FILE - The April 10, 2016 file photo shows Law and Justice leader, the twin brother of former President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw Kaczynski delivers a speech during a ceremony to mark the sixth anniversary of the crash of the Polish government plane in Smolensk, Russia, that killed 96 people on board including Kaczynski and his wife Maria. It’s been seven years since Poland lost its president in a plane crash in Russia. His twin brother, who effectively runs the Polish government today, remains in mourning, only wearing black suits and black ties in public - and determined to punish those he blames for the crash. Jaroslaw Kaczynski has used his position as leader of Poland’s ruling party to direct state bodies to try to debunk official findings that the crash was an accident. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File) (The Associated Press)

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling Law and Justice party, lays a wreath in memory of his brother, President Lech Kaczynski, on the seventh anniversary of this brother's death, in Warsaw , Poland, Monday, April 10, 2017. Poland on Monday remembers the president and 95 others who died with him in a plane crash in Russia on April 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) (The Associated Press)

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling Law and Justice party, lays a wreath in memory of his brother, President Lech Kaczynski, on the seventh anniversary of this brother's death, in Warsaw , Poland, Monday, April 10, 2017. On Monday Poland remembers the president and 95 others who died with him in a plane crash in Russia on April 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) (The Associated Press)

Wreath-laying ceremonies have opened Poland's state observances of the seventh anniversary of a plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, the first lady and 94 others.

Poland's ruling party is led by Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who insists on regular commemoration of one of the nation's worst tragedies, and on honoring the late president.

Early Monday, President Andrzej Duda and Marta Kaczynska, the late presidential couple's daughter, laid flowers at their marble tomb in Krakow.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski is to lay flowers at a plaque to his brother at 08:41 a.m., the time when the plane crashed on April 10, 2010.

Kaczynski and the delegation had been flying to Russia to pay tribute to Polish officers killed there by the Soviet secret police during World War II.