Kraków shooting suspect dies in hospital

The man suspected of opening fire in Kraków’s Main Square, killing six people and injuring 15, has died in hospital, according to Lesser Poland police.

Police said the suspected attacker, a 24-year-old Polish citizen from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, was wounded after an exchange of fire with officers, then detained and taken to hospital in critical condition. The force announced his death on X. The Lesser Poland voivode, Krzysztof Klęczar, also confirmed it on TVN24, saying the man died at 4:30 in a Kraków hospital.

Among the six people killed in the square were four Polish citizens, a British citizen and an Austrian citizen, Euronews reported. Two police officers were among the injured. Klęczar said the condition of the 15 injured people remained unchanged and that they were being treated in six hospitals in Kraków.

What happened in the square is now inseparable from what investigators found in the suspect’s flat. Police there discovered the bodies of three people identified as his closest family members: a 53-year-old man, a 52-year-old woman and a 21-year-old woman. Junior inspector Kamil Tokarski, a spokesperson for Świętokrzyskie police, said officers identified injuries they assessed as gunshot wounds, but said the cause and nature of death would be clarified through detailed examinations.

Authorities believe the same perpetrator was responsible for both the shooting in Kraków and the deaths in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, though that remains under investigation. Prosecutor Eryk Stasielak of the National Prosecutor’s Office said autopsies were due to begin on the six people killed in Kraków and the three family members found in the flat, and that the extent of the gunshot wounds could make the examinations last around two days.

Police said the suspect had no previous convictions and was not previously on record. He held a firearms licence and, according to police, probably used one of the weapons covered by that permit. Authorities have also said he had been “fascinated by far-right ideologies”. Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the shooting as an act of terrorism.

That term carries legal and political weight. The facts already established are grave enough without enlarging them: six people killed in a public square, 15 injured, three more dead in a family home, and a licensed gun owner now beyond questioning. Much of the rest, including sequence, motive and planning, still belongs to the investigation.