Gdansk mayor in critical condition after stabbing, attacker detained

Reuters - The popular veteran mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, was stabbed on Sunday (January 14) evening by a man who burst onto an open-air stage at a national charity event, police said. Adamowicz, 53, was attending the finale of the annual Great Orchestra of Christmas charity event, in which volunteers collect millions of euros for medical equipment for hospitals. Joanna Pogorzelska, who was in Gdansk to see the firework display ending the charity event with her daughter and friends, said a man with a knife walked onto the stage and attacked Adamowicz before he was restrained by the security guards. Local media quoted hospital staff as saying Adamowicz's condition was very serious and he was being operated on. Television footage showed the man screaming that "Adamowicz is dead" because his former party, Civic Platform, which held power from 2007 to 2015, had purportedly tortured him when he was in prison. Adamowicz has been mayor of Gdansk since 1998. In the 2018 regional election, he won 65 percent of votes.