Polish justice minister defends shop owner who fatally stabbed robber

Poland’s justice minister has defended a shop owner who used a knife against robbers attempting to steal from his premises, one of whom died from a stab wound.

“In a state of law, it is the bandits who must be afraid and bear the consequences,” said Zbigniew Ziobro. “The state must always stand on the side of decent citizens who effectively defend themselves.”

The incident in question took place on the night of Sunday 8 January in Kobyłka, a town located on the eastern edge of Warsaw, Poland’s capital.

Surveillance footage from the premises, which was published online, shows two men wearing balaclavas entering the store. One of them was holding what appeared to be a gun and the other had a metal pipe, notes Katarzyna Skrzeczkowska, spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office.

As one of them tried to take money from the cash register while an employee looked on, the shop’s owner emerged, struggled with the robber, then stabbed him with a knife, said Skrzeczkowska, quoted by broadcaster TVN. The two robbers then fled the scene.

One of the men, a 25-year-old, was found dead near the shop and paramedics were unable to revive him.

“Expert opinion indicates that the direct cause of death was one fatal stab wound to the left side of the torso,” said Skrzeczkowska. Further examination “will show whether the man also had other injuries”.

The second robber, aged 22, was arrested the following day and charged with attempted robbery. The store owner has been questioned as a witness, with prosecutors still seeking to determine whether he acted within the legal limits of self-defence.

However, Ziobro – who as well as being justice minister is also public prosecutor general – has made clear that he sides with the owner, whom he described as a “victim”.

“The owner of the store successfully defended himself against the attack of two drug-filled, armed, previously convicted thugs,” said Ziobro. “He mortally wounded one of them, defending his own life and that of the saleswoman.”

Under article 25 of Poland’s criminal code, people have the right to self-defence against an unlawful attack. However, they can face punishment if their actions are deemed to be “disproportionate to the danger” they faced.

Dariusz Loranty, a former superintendent in Warsaw police’s criminal terror and homicide department, told local news service Nasze Miasto that he believes the shop owner’s actions “were proportionate to the threat and fall under article 25 of the criminal code”.

Loranty noted that, from what can be seen in the released video, it appears that the manager only takes the knife from a shelf after entering into a confrontation with the robber. “This is a very important defensive argument for him.”

“The store owner was in a critical situation and had to take some appropriate action,” Mariusz Paplaczyk, president of the Association of Polish Lawyers, told the Fakt daily. “Courts usually strongly take into account the circumstance of self-defence, because the situations we are talking about are undoubtedly crisis situations.”

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.