Pawel Adamowicz, the liberal mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, died yesterday of his wounds, a day after being stabbed by a former convict who rushed the stage during a charity event.
“We couldn’t win,” Poland’s Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski told reporters via private broadcaster TVN.
Doctors had operated on Adamowicz for five hours, state news agency PAP said.
Adamowicz was attacked while attending the annual Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, a fundraiser where volunteers collect money for medical equipment in hospitals.
The head of the charity resigned soon after Adamowicz’s death was announced.
Television footage of the attack showed a man screaming “Adamowicz is dead!” as he rushed the stage and stabbed Adamowicz, who crumpled to the floor.
Speaking on the stage before he was arrested, the attacker accused the mayor’s former party of putting him in prison, where he said he was tortured.
The attacker has been identified by Polish authorities as a 27-year-old named Stefan, who was released last month from prison where he had been serving a 5-1/2 year sentence since 2014 for attempting to steal from banks in Gdansk.
His full name has so far been withheld.
Psychiatrists will now assess if the attacker can be held criminally responsible for his actions, prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said at a press conference.
Politicians across the political spectrum in Poland condemned the stabbing, including members of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), such as Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski.
Adamowicz was an outspoken opponent of PiS.
“I’m expressing great pain for the tragic death due to the criminal attack on mayor Pawel Adamowicz. We express solidarity with his family,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS leader, was quoted as saying in a tweet from the party spokeswoman.
Adamowicz stood out for his initiatives to encourage migrants to seek refuge in the northern Polish city, and for his support of a protest campaign to defend the rule of law in Poland against what activists consider efforts by the PiS to increase its control over the judiciary and other bodies.
Adamowicz was one of Poland’s longest-serving mayors, holding his position in Gdansk since 1998.
In the 2018 regional election, he won 65% of votes.