Judge: “Linking the murder to politics is an over-interpretation”
The Polish opposition has openly blamed the governing Law and Justice party and the public media for the death of Paweł Adamowicz, Mayor of the City of Gdańsk.
Stefan Wilmont has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Gdańsk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz. On each anniversary of Adamowicz’s death, the opposition and the media have stoked the narrative that PiS and TVP were responsible for the local government official’s tragic death. Tusk himself argued that “the big PiS state machine tried to make people believe” that Adamowicz was “the embodiment of evil.”
In rendering the final judgment in this case, the chairwoman of the court, Aleksandra Kaczmarek, explicitly pointed out that “just as the case in question was not a political matter, neither was the defendant’s motivation. Associating this murder with politics is an over-interpretation resulting from public commentary on the case, not from the defendant’s actual convictions.”
“Paweł Adamowicz was murdered, here in Gdańsk, because for long weeks and months not only anonymous hecklers somewhere on the Internet, but the huge state machine of the Law and Justice (PiS) tried every day and every week to make people believe that Paweł Adamowicz was the embodiment of evil.”
– argued Donald Tusk even as recently as January 13, 2023 – the fourth anniversary of Adamowicz’s death. At the time, the PO leader met with young people in Gdansk’s Old Town Hall.
On the other hand, the mayor of Gdańsk, Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, has already started her games, using the conviction of Stefan Wilmont by saying: ‘And the factory of contempt and hatred continues to work, pissing on those who think differently.”
The Mayor of Gdansk Adamowicz was not a victim of political murder!
“The link between the attack and politics is an over-interpretation.”
The presiding judge, Aleksandra Kaczmarek, in justifying the verdict against Adamowicz’s killer, explicitly pointed out that “linking the assassination to politics is an over-interpretation,” – that completely contradicts the narrative of the opposition led by Donald Tusk.
“Stefan Wilmont is characterized by a tendency to satisfy needs and resolve emotional conflicts through aggressive and demonstrative behavior and reactions, often against authority or power. He tends to experience feelings of bitterness and anger towards the whole world for real and imagined wrongs. In his view, the mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, was symbolically responsible for the wrongs he had suffered. As a result, Stefan Wilmont felt justified in killing him. It should be noted, however, that just as the case in question was not a political one, neither was the defendant’s motivation. The association of the murder with politics is an over-interpretation resulting from public commentary on the case and not from the defendant’s actual beliefs,” stressed the judge.
“The extremity of his views was independent of any specific political circumstances. He was looking for an explanation for his sense of injustice. There is no evidence that the defendant was accompanied by obsessive thoughts about the victim of the attack, i.e. Paweł Adamowicz. In view of the above, it is necessary to point out that Stefan Wilmont’s behavior deviated grossly from accepted patterns of behavior, considering that every murder is a violation of such a pattern of behavior. Indeed, there is an element of revenge here that has no real justification. What makes the decision to kill by Stefan Wilmont particularly reprehensible is that Paweł Adamowicz had nothing to do with the person of the accused, let alone with his previous conviction. (…) He was a random person who, in the defendant’s mind, symbolized the original source of the damage he perceived, i.e., the justice system in Gdańsk and the Civic Platform (PO). He was also, in the defendant’s mind, an important person, whose killing would have had a special effect,” said Judge Aleksandra Kaczmarek.
For the original in Polish, please see:
https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/638502-sedzia-zamach-na-adamowicza-nie-byl-sprawa-polityczna
