Krakow, Poland -- A Polish man accused of carrying out a deadly shooting spree in Krakow died in hospital on Monday, two days after he was critically wounded in a gunbattle with officers, police said.
"We inform you that the perpetrator of the tragic events died this morning in the hospital," regional police said in a post on X.
The 24-year-old, dressed in military garb, allegedly opened fire on Saturday in a Krakow square killing six people. The bodies of his parents and a sister were found at the family home in another town. After three operations, the man, identified by Polish media as Michal O., was declared dead around 4:30 am (0330 GMT), regional authorities said.
Authorities had previously said the man had been "fascinated by far-right ideologies" and Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the shooting -- the deadliest in the country since the end of communism in 1989 -- an act of "terrorism".
But at a press conference on Monday, prosecutors said that there was no evidence tying the suspect to any particular political bent. "We do not have findings that we could, in a responsible way, categorically state that he was inspired by any particular ideology," spokesman for the national prosecutor's office Przemyslaw Nowak said. Six people, including an Austrian and a British citizen, were killed in the Krakow shooting spree, and 15 others were wounded, according to authorities.
The wounded included Austrian, British, German, Portuguese and Russian nationals.
Michal O. had no prior criminal record, according to investigators cited in the Polish press. Along with his father, the suspect was a member of a shooting club. Investigators seized 11 firearms during the search.
His paternal grandmother said the man had obtained a gun licence this year, according to Polish media. Poland is experiencing a sharp uptick in the number of firearms permits. In 2025, more than 50,000 new licences were awarded, bringing the total to 411,000, according to the police. (AFP)
