Polish Prosecutors Will Investigate the Kraków Massacre as Terrorism: the 24-Year-Old Attacker Had a Legal Gun Licence

Polish prosecutors will investigate the Kraków massacre as a terrorist offence. On Saturday afternoon 24-year-old Michał O. drove onto Kraków's main square and opened fire on passers-by. He killed six people and wounded 15 more, including two police officers. Police then found the bodies of his parents and sister at his home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. The circumstances of their deaths are also under investigation.

"That does not yet mean a terrorist motive has been confirmed," clarified prosecutors' spokesperson Tomasz Waszczuk. The attacker, whom police wounded during the arrest, has not yet been questioned because of his serious injuries and is under police guard in hospital, where he underwent surgery. The offences he is charged with carry a possible life sentence.

This is where the questions Poland will have to ask itself begin. Michał O. had a gun licence and no criminal record. He fired a semi-automatic rifle similar to an AR-15, also had a pistol, and more weapons and ammunition were found in his car. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński says the attacker held "very radical views", and a fascination with far-right ideologies is also mentioned - although investigators have not yet confirmed that was the motive. If a man with such views can legally own weapons like these, what exactly does the licensing system check?

The police reacted quickly. The first patrol began intervening 23 seconds after the report, and the first shots at the attacker were fired after three minutes. While fleeing, Michał O. crashed into another car, got out and shot at the officers, who returned fire. One of the wounded officers, Jakub Kulik, has three gunshot wounds and is in very serious condition. "The lightning-fast reaction prevented a much bigger massacre," Kierwiński said.

Among the injured are carriage drivers who take tourists around the main square every day - two are fighting for their lives. Among the dead is a British national. The city closed the tourist carriage stands, and President Karol Nawrocki declared two days of national mourning; in Kraków it will last until Wednesday. The police did their job in minutes. Now it's the turn of the institutions that issued the licence to explain what they saw - and what they didn't.