On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal in Gdańsk announced a final verdict in the case of the murder of the President of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz. Stefan Wilmont will spend the rest of his life in prison. – Paweł Adamowicz was not a random victim – said judge Włodzimierz Brazewicz in his oral justification.
The appeals court upheld the verdict in the case of Stefan Wilmont, the murderer of the president of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz. The man was sentenced to life imprisonment.
As the court admitted, only life imprisonment is adequate and severe enough. Moreover, it will protect the public against any future actions of the accused. The justification stated that the court believed the opinions that indicated the perpetrator’s limited sanity. These were detailed and meticulous medical tests – this, in the court’s opinion, should be the basis for the judgment in this case.
The sentence that appeared after the judgment of the first instance, stating that Paweł Adamowicz was an “accidental victim”, was removed from the justification of the judgment. The court found the subsidiary prosecutors’ complaint to be justified. The victim’s wife and brother have no doubt that it was a planned political murder, preceded by many months of hate from TVP against Paweł Adamowicz.
At Thursday’s hearing in the appeals court, Piotr Adamowicz argued that the investigation files contained information that Stefan Wilmont originally planned to commit an attack in the Bałtycka Gallery. Then he decided that attacking the president of Gdańsk during the finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity would bring him much more publicity.
It was also indicated that after inflicting the fatal blows on Adamowicz, the perpetrator shouted a clear political manifesto that could be heard by thousands of television viewers. Moreover, the investigation files also contain information that the killer saw Jarosław Kaczyński as the dictator of Poland and voted for Law and Justice in all elections.
When announcing the verdict, the court noted that the defendant’s behavior and the timing were not accidental. He knew where and when Paweł Adamowicz would be. He had also previously purchased a specialized knife.
Stefan Wilmont sentenced to life imprisonment
In March 2023, Stefan Wilmont was sentenced by the court for the murder of Paweł Adamowicz to life imprisonment. At the same time, the court decided that he would be able to apply for early release after 40 years of solitary confinement. Stefan Wilmont’s defense lawyer appealed against the judgment of the court of first instance and requested extraordinary leniency of the sentence.
The appellate court dealt with the defendant’s case at a hearing on Thursday, January 18. After a short deliberation, the court did not accept the defense’s requests for additional evidence in connection with the psychiatric opinions collected during the proceedings in this case.
In his closing speech, the defendant’s defense attorney, Damian Witt, pointed out that the defendant’s punishment should be extremely leniency due to the defendant’s insanity.
In her final speech, prosecutor Agnieszka Nickel-Rogowska requested that the defense attorney’s appeal be dismissed. In her opinion, the accused does not deserve extraordinary leniency, and a life sentence is the only appropriate sentence.
– Stefan Wilmont remained consistently silent during the court proceedings. He did not admit to committing the act he was accused of and never explained what he did, said the prosecutor. According to the prosecutor’s office, the appeal aims to establish that Stefan Wilmont is a sick person and therefore should not be found guilty and should not be punished. According to the prosecutor’s office, Wilmont is not a sick person, but a person who has disorders and can be helped by therapy, hence the punishment is to be served in a therapeutic setting.
In his last words, Wilmont stated that the Prison Service did not have the conditions to detain him. “Either insanity or the lowest possible sentence,” Wilmont said, adding that he wanted to get out of prison as soon as possible to “start the life that the court took from him.”
The murder of Paweł Adamowicz in January 2019
In March 2023, the District Court in Gdańsk found Wilmont guilty of the murder of Paweł Adamowicz, as well as attacking and threatening the announcer, for which he received a total penalty of life imprisonment.
At the same time, the court decided that he would be able to apply for early release after 40 years of solitary confinement. According to the court, he should serve his sentence in a therapeutic system – undertake therapy and social rehabilitation activities. At the same time, he was sentenced to 10 years of deprivation of public rights.
The crime took place on January 13, 2019 in Gdańsk during the finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity in Gdańsk in the Old Town in front of the participants and millions of television viewers.
photo-source">Source of main photo: TVN24
