Polish official with doubted assassination theory honored

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — President Andrzej Duda of Poland has awarded the country’s top civilian honor to a pro-democracy fighter who recently was accused in the media of manipulating evidence while investigating a 2010 airplane crash that killed the then-president and 95 other prominent Poles. Duda said Friday that he awarded The Order of the White Eagle to Antoni Macierewicz for his contribution to Poland’s sovereignty and service to the country. Macierewicz co-founded a dissident organization in the 1970s that laid foundations for the nationwide Solidarity movement that toppled communist rule in 1989. As head of a special government commission, he has insisted the plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski was an assassination planned in Moscow.