A Polish military prosecutor shot himself in the head on Monday after abruptly cutting short a news conference in which he had defended a military investigation into leaks related to a plane crash that killed Poland's president in Russia two years ago. Mikolaj Przybyl was taken to hospital after reporters found him lying on the floor of his office in a pool of blood shortly after hearing a gunshot.
Przybyl had asked the reporters to leave his office after he criticised media leaks from the ongoing probe into the April 10, 2010, crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, mostly senior Polish officials, in Smolensk, western Russia. Several news outlets showed footage of Przybyl's body behind his desk before an ambulance took him to hospital.
Poland's chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet told a news conference later in Warsaw that Przybyl's life was no longer in danger and that he was likely to recover. Seremet also said he disagreed with some of the comments made by Przybyl at the news conference. Serement said military prosecutors had been right to seek journalists' mobile phone records while searching for the source of leaks in the Smolensk investigation, but that they had broken the law by also seeking access to text messages.
"This case has been accompanied by so much emotion, including unnecessary hysteria, in my view," said Seremet, who also contradicted comments made by Przybyl over a planned shake-up of the military prosecution service. Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said in a statement he was "concerned" about the incident and asked the national security bureau to monitor the situation.
The Smolensk crash investigation remains a very sensitive political issue for Poland and for its relations with Moscow. The leader of the main opposition party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, - twin brother of the late president - has accused the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk of conniving with Russia to cover up the real causes of the disaster.