Stabbed Polish mayor dies
Gdansk, Poland, Jan. 14: The centrist mayor of the Polish port city of Gdansk died on Monday, a day after a man stabbed him in the heart in front of hundreds of people at a charity event.
“Despite all our efforts, we failed to save him,” said Doctor Tomasz Stefaniak, director of Gdansk University hospital, quoted by the Polish PAP news agency.
Anti-violence rallies are being planned nationwide after Sunday’s shock attack on Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, known for his liberal views and opposition to Poland’s governing rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
The 53-year-old had been in a very critical condition after he suffered a serious wound to the heart and cuts to his diaphragm and abdominal organs, according to surgeons who operated on him for five hours.
Video footage showed the attacker, who police said was wearing a press badge, bursting on to the podium and launching himself at Adamowicz, who had been waving sparklers with others on stage as the fundraiser was winding down on Sunday evening.
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 the hospital. Gdansk residents flooded blood donation centres following news that Adamowicz had received 15 litres (32 pints) of blood and required more of the rare O Rh-type.
“There is an atmosphere of aggression in Poland,” a blood donor who identified himself only as Zygmunt told AFP, reflecting on the broader context of the attack. —