Polish mayor’s killer found guilty and given life sentence

Stefan Wilmont, who killed Gdańsk mayor Paweł Adamowicz on stage at a charity event in January 2019, has been found guilty of murder and given a life sentence.

The ruling, which can be appealed, comes after a long legal process in which prosecutors sought to assess Wilmont’s mental fitness to stand trial. His defence team later pleaded for proceedings to be discontinued on the grounds of their client’s insanity.

Today, judge Aleksandra Kaczmarek ruled that Wilmont will serve his sentence in a ward for prisoners with non-psychotic mental disorders. He will only be eligible for parole after serving 40 years, reports the Gazeta Wyborcza daily

Adamowicz was fatally stabbed by Wilmont on 13 January during a concert organised as part of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP), Poland’s largest annual charity event. He died the following day in hospital aged 53, leaving behind a wife and two young daughters.

The killer, then aged 27, had one month earlier been released from prison, where he had served a sentence for armed robbery. He reportedly blamed the authorities for his previous imprisonment and had received treatment for his mental health while in prison.

After stabbing Adamowicz, Wilmont took a microphone and declared that he had been “imprisoned while innocent” and that “Civic Platform tortured me. That’s why Adamowicz died”. Civic Platform (PO) was Poland’s ruling party from 2007 to 2015, and Adamowicz had been a member of it (though later became an independent).

While Wilmont was immediately detained at the scene, it remained unclear if he would be able to stand trial due to his mental health. Eventually, over three years after Adamowicz’s death, the trial began in March 2022.

As well as today being sentenced to life for the murder of Adamowicz, Wilmont was also given an additional two-year prison sentence for threatening the compere at the event where the incident took place.

Adamowicz’s death has also taken on a political dimension, with his family and opposition politicians claiming that Wilmont was inspired to carry out the attack by regular criticism of the mayor on state broadcaster TVP, which is under the influence of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The mayor’s wife, Magdalena Adamowicz, who is now a member of the European Parliament representing Poland’s main opposition group, has repeatedly said that her husband was a victim of the “hate” promoted against him by state media.

PiS and its supporters have vociferously denied such claims, arguing that TVP’s coverage of corruption allegations against Adamowicz was justified and also noting that, after the mayor left PO, he was regularly criticised by his old party and media supportive of it.

Main image credit: Bartosz Banka / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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.