Polish mayor dies of his injuries after being stabbed on stage at a charity event

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A Polish mayor died on Monday after a convicted criminal stabbed him while on stage at a charity event.

Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, 53, grabbed his belly and collapsed after being stabbed in the abdomen multiple times in front of the audience on Sunday night.

The attack happened during the "Lights to Heaven" fundraiser organised by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, Poland’s most important charity. The assailant made no attempt to flee and instead grabbed a microphone to address the audience while waving his knife in the air.

Mr Adamowicz was taken to a hospital where he underwent five-hours of surgery.  However, on Monday hospital officials said that the mayor had succumbed to his injuries. 

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Polish broadcaster TVN said the attacker shouted from the stage that he had been wrongly imprisoned under a previous national government led by Civic Platform, the liberal party to which the mayor formerly belonged. The 27-year-old man, who police said had convictions for bank robberies and had gained access to the area with a media badge, is now expected to be charged with murder.

TVN footage showed Adamowicz on stage with a sparkler in hand telling the audience that it had been a "wonderful day" and then the attacker coming toward him.  

After the stabbing, the perpetrator yelled that his name was Stefan and that "I was jailed but innocent. … Civic Platform tortured me. That’s why Adamowicz just died."

The mayor’s death has stunned Poland, especially as it came during an annual charity event that raises huge sums of money to buy state-of-the-art equipment for children’s hospitals.  

Mayor of the Baltic port city since 1998, Adamowicz had been on the streets of Gdansk on Sunday collecting money for the charity, along with volunteers around the country.

The veteran politician was part of the democratic opposition born in Gdansk in the 1980s under the leadership of Lech Walesa, the man credited with helping to bring down communism from the city’s shipyards. After leaving Civic Platform, Adamowicz was re-elected to a sixth term as an independent candidate in the fall.

Mr Walesa tweeted: “Farewell Pawel. You will remain in our memories.”

Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, condemned "the hostility and violence that caused such a tragedy and so much pain”.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, a former Civic Platform prime minister and a native of Gdansk, was on Monday expected to travel to the city, where an anti-violence rally was to be held in parallel with another in Warsaw.  “Paweł Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, a man of Solidarity and freedom, a European, my good friend, has been murdered. May he rest in peace,” Mr Tusk tweeted.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity raises money to buy state-of-the-art medical equipment for Poland’s cash-strapped hospitals, mostly for children.

The last attack on a politician in Poland was in 2010 in Lodz. A man shouting that he wanted to kill Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski fatally shot an aide to one of the party’s lawmakers to the European Parliament. A second man was stabbed and injured.

At the time Law and Justice was in the opposition and Kaczynski blamed the attack at an "atmosphere of hate" under the rival party, Civic Platform.