Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after he was attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, Poland’s health minister said Monday.
Lukasz Szumowski said the doctors who were fighting to save Adamowicz’s life informed him the mayor had died.
The Twitter account for the City of Gdansk also announced the death.
A surgeon earlier said Adamowicz, 53, suffered wounds to the heart, diaphragm and other internal organs.
“The fight for his life has been lost,” Szumowski said.
The death of Adamowicz, a six-term mayor who often mingled freely with citizens of his city, sent Poland into shock.
Even before his death was announced, rallies against violence were being planned to take place across Poland in the evening. In Gdansk, the city flag was lowered to half-mast and a mass was planned for later in the day.
The right-wing ruling Law and Justice party faced accusations from critics that an atmosphere of hatred against Adamowicz and others liberal political opponents helped instigate the attack.
Nie żyje prezydent Gdańska Paweł Adamowicz. Prosimy wszystkich o dobrą myśl i modlitwy w jego intencji. <a href=”https://t.co/cBvxzeeVoH”>pic.twitter.com/cBvxzeeVoH</a>
—@gdansk
He became mayor in 1998. After leaving the Civic Platform party, he was re-elected to a sixth term as an independent candidate in the fall.
Donald Tusk, the European Council president from Poland, was among those expressing sorrow on social media: “Paweł Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdańsk, a man of Solidarity and freedom, a European, my good friend, has been murdered. May he rest in peace.”
According to witnesses, the suspect shouted from the stage in Gdansk that he had been wrongly imprisoned under a previous national government led by Civic Platform.
Identified as a 27-year-old man, he had been previously convicted of involvement in bank robberies and served the 5½-year prison term in full.
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said Monday he found no words to describe the “evil” of this “terrible event.”
Deputy chief prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said there are “doubts” as to the mental state of the attacker, who used a 14.5-centimetre knife.
Adamowicz collapsed in front of the audience during the “Lights to Heaven” fundraiser organized by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity.
Championed LGBT, refugee rights
The attack triggered an outpouring of solidarity, with many people donating blood in Gdansk on Monday. Some said they were given time off work to do so.
The spokesperson for the ruling Law and Justice party, Beata Mazurek, said the attack should be “absolutely condemned by all, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they are on.”
She insisted politicians in Poland need “greater responsibility for words, for deeds” because “there is no shortage of madmen on both sides” of the political scale.
Ruling authorities also sent a government plane to transport the mayor’s wife, who had been travelling, from London back to Gdansk.
There was an increase in the number of blood donors Gdansk on Monday in the wake of the attack on the mayor. (Krzysztof Mystkowski/KFP via AP)
As mayor, he was a progressive voice, supporting sex education in schools, LGBT rights and tolerance for minorities. He showed solidarity with the Jewish community when Gdansk synagogue had its windows broken last year, strongly denouncing the vandalism.
Adamowicz also advocated bringing wounded Syrian children to Gdansk for medical treatment. The plan, however, was blocked by the Law and Justice government. After he took that stand, a far-right group, the All-Polish Youth, issued what a “political death notice” for Adamowicz.
The last politically motivated attack in Poland was in 2010 in Lodz when a man shouting he wanted to kill Law and Justice Leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski fatally shot an aide to one of the party’s European Parliament lawmakers.
Kaczynski, at the time an Opposition leader, blamed the attack on an “atmosphere of hate” under Civic Platform.