The Russian government prevented the Polish president's plane from landing four times to divert him from a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, according to an MP.

Artur Gorski said the Russians 'came up with some dubious reasons' that the aircraft couldn't land because they feared President Leck Kaczynski's presence would overshadow a similar event hosted by the Russian prime minister a few days before.

And their alleged plan ended in disaster when the Polish pilots made one final and disastrous attempt to land, killing Mr. Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others on board the plane.

The coffin of Polish president Lech Kaczynski is laid out at the Presidential Palace chapel in Warsaw, Poland.

'One version of events says that the plane approached the airport four times, because every time the Russians refused it permission to land - they wanted to send the plane with the president to an airport in Moscow or Minsk,' Mr. Gorski claimed in an interview published in the newspaper Nasz Dziennik.

'They came up with some dubious reasons: that there was fog over the airport, and that the navigation system didn't work as it was under renovation, and that airport had a short landing strip.'

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