The alleged perpetrator of the shooting committed last Saturday in Krakow, which left six dead and 16 injured, and who is suspected of also killing three relatives in another town, died this morning in a hospital in the city, the Lesser Poland Regional Police reported in a message published in X.
“We inform that the author of these tragic events has died this morning in the hospital,” the brief statement confirmed, without providing further details for the moment about the exact time of death or the medical causes of death.
The alleged attacker, a 24-year-old Polish citizen with far-right ideas, had been seriously injured on Saturday during the confrontation with the agents who tried to arrest him after the shooting.
He was transferred to a hospital under police custody, where he underwent surgery on several occasions and remained in critical condition, according to the Polish national prosecutor’s office.
Poland’s national prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Sunday into a terrorist crime and, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said on Saturday, the alleged shooter was “fascinated with far-right ideologies,” although he did not reveal further details.
He opened fire on passers-by indiscriminately.
The attack occurred around 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT) on Saturday in the Main Market Square, the historical and tourist heart of Krakow.
The man drove a vehicle into the square and opened fire indiscriminately at passers-by, according to authorities.
The Police assured that the attacker acted alone and that he was neutralized in about three minutes, after an exchange of shots with the agents. Two police officers were injured by gunshots during the intervention; one of them was in serious condition and underwent surgery.
The initial toll confirmed by the authorities was six dead – four women and two men, including a British citizen – and 16 injured, five of them foreigners.
The two officers who participated in the arrest also included the injured.
At the same time, during the search of the alleged attacker’s home, in the town of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (south), the bodies of three people – two women and a man – were found, presumably his parents and his sister, with gunshot wounds.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the events as an “attack” and declared two days of national mourning.
The death of the attacker closes the first phase of the investigation, but does not yet clarify the exact motive or the full scope of the events, while judicial and police proceedings continue.
