Krakow (Poland) (AFP) – The author of the Krakow massacre, a 24-year-old Pole who died of his injuries on Monday, will never answer for his actions, for which investigators say they do not yet have any material evidence to associate them with a particular ideology.

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 11:56 Modified on: 09/11/2026 - 12:57

Michal Oksinski, hit multiple times by police bullets, died Monday at 4:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m.) in hospital after undergoing three operations.

In military uniform, masked and helmeted, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, he opened fire, from his vehicle, on passers-by near the market square of the old town, popular with tourists, on Saturday around 3 p.m.

Six people, including a 32-year-old British man and a 51-year-old Austrian woman, died.

Fifteen others, including two police officers and five foreign nationals (British, Portuguese, Russian, German and Austrian) were injured. Their state of health was “stable” on Monday, according to regional authorities.

The police intervened within minutes. A chase then began between the attacker, driving a black Subaru, and a crew of local police.

At an intersection, the man hit a stationary vehicle. He got out of his car and exchanged fire with two police officers, seriously injuring them.

Carrying of weapons

According to the Minister of the Interior, the killer was “fascinated by far-right ideologies”. But investigators believe that lengthy investigations will be necessary to understand his motivations and say they cannot “categorically” corroborate the minister’s comments.

“We have no evidence allowing us to state categorically and responsibly that he was inspired by one ideology or another,” Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesperson for the national prosecutor's office, said at a press conference on Monday.

“It is much too early to comment on the motivations (...). We have not found obvious symbols that we generally associate with a particular political movement, whether far right or far left,” he added.

An investigation into an act of a "terrorist nature" has nevertheless been opened and the procedure for the homicide of his relatives has been added.

The death of the killer - who could never be heard - naturally puts an end to the proceedings against him but the investigation continues, the prosecution stressed on Monday.

According to investigators cited in the Polish press, Michal Oksinski had no criminal record. He was a member, with his father, of a shooting club. In total, seven weapons were seized from their home. The killer had taken four weapons to Krakow, including two semi-automatic rifles, and around 500 rounds of ammunition, according to the prosecution.

His paternal grandmother told media that he had obtained a gun permit this year.

The Ministry of the Interior has announced that it is launching a review of the conditions for granting firearms possession permits. License holders' medical records should be updated regularly.

Poland is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of weapons permits. In 2025, more than 50,000 new permits were granted, bringing the number to 411,000, according to police.

Emblems and badges

"The perpetrator's clothes had many different emblems on them," Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Galecka told radio on Monday. “There were numerous emblems and crests associated with various motifs, currently being analyzed,” she added without wanting to specify their nature.

In the former capital of Poland, which welcomed more than 16 million visitors in 2025, the market square was reopened on Sunday evening, allowing Krakow residents and tourists to gather there.

An Eastern European country of 38 million inhabitants hitherto spared from attacks, Poland had not experienced such a massacre of civilians since the end of the communist regime (1944-1989).

However, acts of violence have increased recently with knife attacks perpetrated in schools, particularly this fall, and the political debate is hardening between the pro-European center-right government of Donald Tusk and the national-conservative opposition.

Since the killing, voices within the centrist majority have denounced the rhetoric of the right and the far right which accuses the government of "treason" and "coup d'état" after the intervention of the police at the Constitutional Court which it intends to reform.

Two days of national mourning were declared on Sunday and Monday.

© 2026 AFP

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