Piotr W. arrested after attack on police officer near Constitutional Court
A man attacked a female police officer in a Warsaw building and was charged with assault and forcing police to abandon their duties. A knife was found in his possession.
Attack and detention near the Court
Piotr W. was detained on Friday 16 October near the Constitutional Court in Warsaw. According to wiadomosci.gazeta.pl and a statement from the Warsaw Metropolitan Police Command, the man was behaving nervously and unnaturally in the vicinity of a gathering near the constitutional court building. Police officers approached him to request identification, but he refused to provide his personal details.
At some point, Piotr W. ran and entered a building on Marszałkowska Street, near Aleja Szucha and Plac Unii Lubelskiej. Inside the building, he behaved aggressively and attacked a police officer, assaulting her and causing a head injury. During a search, police found a knife on him.
Charges filed at the prosecutor's office
On Saturday, Piotr W. was taken to the District Prosecutor's Office for Warsaw City Centre, where investigators brought charges against him. The man is accused of forcing police officers to abandon their duties and assaulting a police officer. One of the charged acts carries the threat of loss of life or serious injury to health.
Piotr W. did not admit guilt and refused to provide explanations during questioning. His lawyer Bartosz Malewski informed the court that he had nevertheless submitted extensive explanations, during which the man presented the situation from his perspective. The lawyer requested that his client undergo a medical examination.
Man's statement and disputes over events
On the same day, the Ordo Iuris organisation published a statement from Piotr W., in which he claimed that doctors at the hospital had not performed any tests on him, including a CT scan. The man complained of headaches and wounds. Police, however, denied reports of a "cut head".
A dispute also arose over access to legal representatives. Piotr W. claimed that he did not tell police that he did not want legal representation, and that nobody explained to him specifically which lawyers were being offered. The Warsaw Metropolitan Police Command responded that the man had refused contact with a lawyer from the start of his detention, and only changed his mind later. Police released a recording of a dialogue with an officer, in which the man responded that he did not know the lawyer being offered to him.
Political context
The detention took place in a building on Marszałkowska Street, where the office of Adam Borowski, an activist associated with protests at the Constitutional Court, is located. Tomasz Sakiewicz, head of TV Republika, claimed on the X platform that the detained man was Borowski's "collaborator" and suggested that the police intervention was unusually violent.
Source: Google News PL