The Warsaw Police Headquarters announced on Friday that it had secured a number of recordings, from monitoring to mobile phone recordings of witnesses to the murder of a 53-year-old employee of the University of Warsaw. Within 24 hours of the incident, police questioned 20 witnesses.
On Friday, the Warsaw Police Headquarters announced that after receiving information about the crime at the University of Warsaw, the first police officers from the District Police Headquarters Warsaw I arrived at the scene within four minutes and detained the attacker. At the same time, an alarm was announced for part of the criminal division of the Warsaw garrison.
“Due to the nature of the incident, the case was transferred to police officers from the Warsaw Department of Combating Criminal Terror and Homicide (…) Officers from the operational division searched the suspect's apartment,” the police reported on social media. They added that in less than 24 hours from the incident, they interviewed 20 witnesses and secured surveillance footage from the scene, as well as videos recorded by witnesses on their mobile phones.
On Thursday, 22-year-old Mieszko R. was charged in the District Prosecutor's Office for Warsaw Śródmieście-Północ with three counts: murder with particular cruelty of the injured party, attempted murder of a University Guard security guard and desecration of the injured party's corpse. He faces life imprisonment.
As emphasized by the spokesman of the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, Prosecutor Piotr Antonii Skiba during Thursday's conference, the information that has been obtained so far indicates that the detained Mieszko R. has not been undergoing psychiatric treatment and has not taken any medication in the past year. He also said that this is the initial stage of the proceedings. “The decisive factors in the near future will be the toxicological, autopsy and forensic psychiatric opinions,” he said. “We must determine whether there are grounds to charge someone, i.e. whether someone was fully conscious. The prosecutor's office's further steps depend on the psychiatric opinion ordered,” Prosecutor Skiba emphasized.
When asked about the cannibalism charge, the prosecutor said that the prosecutor was waiting for the autopsy results and “that the charges brought reflect what results from witness testimonies and monitoring.”
He pointed out that there were films posted online that “depicted a deceased person, which may be treated as a violation of personal rights.”
“It is a sign of our times that photos are taken first, under the pretext of documenting the incident, and only then the services are informed,” he added, referring to the fact that some witnesses to the attack on campus recorded videos instead of intervening.
Prosecutor Skiba also noted that at this stage of the investigation there is no indication that the suspect knew the murdered UW employee or that he was planning the crime.
On Wednesday, a 22-year-old student of the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Law attacked a 53-year-old porter with an axe as she was closing the door to the Auditorium Maximum. The woman died at the scene.
A 39-year-old employee of the UW Guard rushed to help the woman, who was also seriously wounded by the attacker. The man was taken to hospital in serious condition. On Thursday, his condition improved and the man's life is currently out of danger.
The arrest of Mieszko R. was attended by an officer of the State Protection Service who was present at the scene, who provided assistance to the intervening employees of the University Protection Guard, and also provided first aid to the injured employee. The State Protection Service was on campus, because the Minister of Justice, Adam Bodnar, was attending an academic lecture elsewhere. (PAP)
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