Poland Detains a Suspect in a Plot Against Tusk
“The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Donald Tusk wrote, thanking police for “swift and decisive action”. The plot targeted the prime minister and his deputy, the defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. A Polish national was arrested in Lower Silesia after an email about the planned attack reached the state protection service.
Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for the minister coordinating Poland’s special services, did not soften it: “We are treating this matter as deadly serious… In this case we are talking about a strong likelihood that these threats could actually be carried out.” Police, the protection service and the internal security agency all attended an emergency meeting on Sunday; Mr Tusk was told first thing. It lands in a week of school attacks. Three violent incidents at Polish schools have left a 37-year-old caretaker at a primary school north of Warsaw dead and others injured, among them children, and police have arrested 117 people nationwide for carrying weapons or threatening attacks after searching tens of thousands of schools. Mr Tusk’s diagnosis is the part that travels: “These are very often spontaneous actions inspired by online activity… We are not dealing with any group organized on a big scale,” and “In the past years and months, we have noted — globally and in Poland — a rise in the fascination with violence.” He called it nihilistic violence associated with the extreme right and said some of those detained are active in that milieu. Last year he reported threats after the attempt on the Slovak prime minister Robert Fico.