Paweł Adamowicz, 53, the long-serving mayor of the northern Polish city of Gdańsk, died on Monday from severe wounds inflicted by a knifeman during a high-profile charity event a day earlier.
Officers have in recent days cracked down on individuals who have threatened mayors of other cities as well as other local government and public administration officials and politicians, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported on Friday.
Police have also zeroed in on individuals who publicly mocked Adamowicz's death, the news agency reported.
Officials including Poland’s interior minister have said that the 27-year-old man who knifed and fatally wounded Adamowicz is a repeat offender who was in the past convicted of armed robberies.
The man, identified only as "Stefan W.," had a previous criminal record of four bank robberies, according to reports.
He served five-and-a-half years in prison and was discharged in December, the Polish public radio broadcaster’s IAR news agency has reported.
Meanwhile, presidential aides and security officials denied media reports on Friday that Adamowicz’s murderer attempted to get into the presidential palace in Warsaw after he left prison in December.
"Maybe he was somewhere in the vicinity, but he certainly did not try to force his way into the presidential palace," Lt. Col. Bogusław Piórkowski, from the State Security Service (SOP), said, as cited by IAR.
Grażyna Wawryniuk, a spokeswoman for the Gdańsk District Prosecutor's Office, which is investigating Adamowicz’s murder, was cited as saying that preliminary findings by prosecutors indicated that “Stefan W., after leaving jail in Gdańsk, was in Warsaw, including around the presidential palace, and may have been planning a crime.”
In the wake of Adamowicz’s murder, investigators were following up on leads suggesting that the assailant had psychiatric problems.
If found of sound mind, the mayor's killer deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison, the country’s justice minister said on Thursday.
Crowds in Gdańsk were on Friday paying tribute to the slain Polish mayor whose death left people in shock and searching for answers.
Mourners gathered to file past his coffin as it lay in state, surrounded by flowers and draped in the flag of the city.
Adamowicz’s coffin was later in the day expected to be carried through the streets of Gdańsk to his resting place at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a centuries-old Roman Catholic church.
Adamowicz, who was mayor of Gdańsk for more than 20 years, will be laid to rest among other prominent city figures in the Gothic brick church on Saturday.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda has declared a national day of mourning in honour of the murdered politician, to be observed from 5 pm on Friday to 7 pm on Saturday.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR