A gunman suspected of killing six people in a popular market square in Kraków has died in hospital, Polish police said early on Monday.
The suspect, a 24-year-old named in local media as Michal O who authorities say was probably inspired by far-right ideologies, had been wounded in a shootout with police and had been in critical condition in hospital.
“We would like to inform you that the perpetrator of the tragic events died in hospital early this morning,” Malopolska Policja wrote on X.
Polish prosecutors had opened a terrorism investigation after the man opened fire on Saturday afternoon, killing six including a Briton and injuring 17, in an attack that shocked a country that was considered safer than many of its European neighbours.
Karolina Galecka, an interior ministry spokeswoman, told radio TOK FM on Monday: “There were many different emblems on the perpetrator’s clothing that have been partially examined and interpreted.
“These patches were associated with various motifs that are currently being analysed by specialists,” she added, declining to comment further as the investigation was ongoing.
Police confirmed on Sunday that three people found dead at the gunman’s home after the attack were his father, 53, mother, 52, and sister, 21.
Five of the wounded are foreign nationals from Britain, Austria, Germany, Portugal and Russia. Two police officers were also among the injured, one of whom was in a serious condition.
As two days of national mourning began, the national prosecutor’s office said on social media it had launched an investigation into “the killing of six people … using a firearm, and the attempted murder of many others, including police officers, this act constituting a terrorist offence”.
The rare mass shooting has deepened concern about extremism in Poland after several school stabbings in October that left one woman dead and which officials said were linked to extremist content online.
The interior minister, Marcin Kierwiński, said the suspect was fascinated with far-right ideologies and held “very radical” and “ultra-nationalistic” views.
The Kraków suspect drove into the city’s main square in the heart of the old town, which is usually packed with tourists, at top speed at about 3pm on Saturday. Wearing military-style fatigues and a bulletproof vest, he started shooting at random as he took what the Kraków police spokesperson Katarzyna Cisło described as a “wild ride” around the square.
