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Polish mayor ‘critical’ after being stabbed in heart at fundraiser
WARSAW, Jan 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A knife-wielding assailant stabbed the
mayor of the Polish port city of Gdansk in front of hundreds of people at a
charity event, leaving the politician fighting for his life on Monday after
five hours of surgery.
Video footage showed the attacker bursting onto the podium and launching
himself at Pawel Adamowicz, 53, who had been waving sparklers with others on
stage at the Sunday evening fundraiser.
After knifing the mayor several times, the man turned to the crowd with
his arms raised triumphantly but was quickly tackled to the ground by
security guards and arrested.
Paramedics resuscitated Adamowicz at the scene before rushing him to
hospital where doctors said early Monday he had survived an operation but was
in a “very, very critical condition”.
The mayor suffered a serious wound to the heart and cuts to the diaphragm
and abdominal organs, said Tomasz Stefaniak, the surgeon who treated him at
Gdansk’s university hospital.
“The coming hours will be decisive,” he added.
A local police spokesman said the detained man was a 27-year-old who lived
in Gdansk, a Baltic coast city with a population of around half a million.
In a video recording of the attack posted on YouTube, the suspect was seen
seizing the microphone and claiming he had been wrongly jailed by the
previous centrist government of the Civic Platform (PO) and tortured.
“That’s why Adamowicz dies,” he said.
One eyewitness told broadcaster TVN that the man appeared “happy with what
he had done”.
– ‘Press’ badge –
Adamowicz has been mayor of Gdansk for two decades and the Civic Platform
had supported his re-election in 2018 municipal polls.
Sunday’s event was part of a big nationwide drive to raise funds for the
purchase of medical equipment and featured a colourful stage set-up including
lights, smoke and pyrotechnics.
“There is hope but his condition remains serious,” Polish President
Andrzej Duda said earier on Twitter, adding that Adamowicz was alive but
“gravely wounded”.
“Despite our political differences, I stand without question in solidarity
with him and those close to him… I pray for his swift recovery,” the leader
said.
According to local media, the suspect had been sentenced to more than five
years in prison for four armed attacks on banks in Gdansk.
His mental state had severely deteriorated during his time in jail,
reports said.
Police were investigating how the attacker had been able to breach
security to reach the podium, local police spokeswoman Joanna Kowalik-
Kosinska told reporters.
“We know that he used an identifier with the inscription ‘Press’,” she
said. “Now we have to establish how was it obtained, was the accreditation in
his name and was he really entitled to be there at that time?”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned the attack on Twitter
and Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski called it “an incomprehensible act
of barbarism”.
Overseas officials including EU President Donald Tusk, European Commission
Vice President Frans Timmermans and mayor of London Sadiq Khan also expressed
their support for Adamowicz.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0937 hrs