Smolensk colonel in suicide bid

13th January 2012

A military prosecutor rocked the country this week after he made a failed suicide attempt by shooting himself in the head during a break in a press conference in Poznan.

Colonel Mikolaj Przybyl ushered journalists out of his office, picked up a pistol and fired as the press waited outside. One camera left rolling filmed the officer alone in the room; at one point he moves off camera but it picks up the clear sound of a gun being cocked and then a loud bang.

Journalists re-entered the room to find the colonel rolling on the floor in a pool of blood.

“I saw the prosecutor lying beside a desk, and at first I thought he had fainted,” Lukasz Ciesla, a journalist from the newspaper Glos Wielkopolski, told the television channel TVN 24. “But then I saw he was bleeding from the head, and a second later I saw the gun.”

Col. Przybyl was taken to hospital with facial injuries but has made good progress. At press time he remained in hospital under psychiatric supervision.

“I wanted to commit suicide,” the colonel explained in an interview for the Polish Press Agency. “I put the pistol in my mouth but my hand shook when I saw the door handle move. A man who wanted to shift the cables saved me … the bullet hit my cheek and didn’t go through my head.”

He also explained that he had decided to kill himself to protect the “honour” of HIS office.

During the press conference the prosecutor made a passionate defence against allegations that his office had used illegal methods to hack into and tap mobile phones used by journalists covering the leak of sensitive material relating to the Smolensk disaster.

Col. Przybyl also expressed his steadfast opposition to plans by the Andrzej Seremet, the prosecutor general, to bring the military office under civilian control. Mr Seremet’s plans have ignited a bitter feud between the military and civilian prosecutor’s offices that has dragged in the prime minister and opposition parties.

In an additional twist to the story the suicidal colonel claimed that his attempt had been “influenced” by the pressures of a high-level corruption case. He said that he had received death threats, his dog had been killed and that there was a PLN 1 mln price on his head.