Man who tried to blow up Tusk’s ruling party HQ in Warsaw detained by police
Police on Monday morning detained the man responsible for the attack on the headquarters of Poland’s ruling party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), and reported that he had previously been detained for threats to Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
On Friday around 3pm a man was spotted attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail into the headquarters of the PO party on Wiejska Street, Warsaw. People present at the scene said that while the man attempted to light the bottle containing the explosive material, he was pushed aside, leading to it breaking in front of the building.
Warsaw Police Headquarters wrote on the X platform that 44-year-old Krzysztof B., a Polish citizen, was detained on Monday morning and is set to be questioned the same day. According to the police, he is facing charges of threats and damage to property and has previously been found guilty for threats towards the prime minister.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski told private broadcaster Polsat News on Monday that there was no doubt that the target of the attack was the PO office. "First of all, the individual shouted out obscenities directed at the Civic Platform. And the other case is the fact that he already has a rich portfolio when it comes to threats aimed at Prime Minister Donald Tusk. I think that shows clearly that this is a product of the political hatred that has been perpetrated for many, many years by certain political circles,” Kierwinski said.
On Monday, the incident was also addressed by Tusk through a post on X. "In June he heard charges of threatening me with death, in October he tried to set fire to the [Civic] Platform’s headquarters,” he wrote.
Tusk also named Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the main socially-conservative opposition, the Law and Justice (PiS) and Robert Bakiewicz, the far-right activist, claiming they "must be happy now," referring to a rally organised in Warsaw last Saturday by PiS, which criticised Tusk's government. During that protest, Bakiewicz called the PO "weeds that need to be pulled out of the Polish soil."
Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Zurek also commented on the matter during a press conference in Pinczow, southern Poland, that in order to ensure that other people do not get the same idea, the state needs to show the "agency of its services."
"Everyone, who thinks of committing such an act, should know that they won’t go unpunished..." he said. "I don't want to talk here about how courts should operate, because they are independent. It seems to me that such trials should proceed quickly and we should show that there is no tolerance for such acts, because we all know how it could have ended."
He said that "both the police and the prosecutor's office will act effectively here."
"We will not allow anarchy, which is fuelled by irresponsible political statements, to take hold in Poland," he added. (PAP)
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