On November 15th, we informed about the shots fired in one of the biggest international companies in Tricity – Thomson Reuters. Today, we know more details as well as first decisions of authorities connected with the suspect.
Allegation
Shortly after the situation in the office of Thomson Reuters, the prosecutor’s office stated an allegation toward arrested 30 year old man. The citizen of Belarus faced a very serious allegation: attempted murder. Local sports club in Gdansk – Ardea published a statement of the suspect on their official website.
The statement of the suspect
What do we know from their statements?
First of all, we know that he has been practicing sport shooting for a couple of years. As a result, he owns two guns: Glock 17 and match rifle Suhl KK 150. As the suspect underlined, the guns were always in covers as the current law requires. The Glock was in a holster whereas the match rifle was in the case.
Secondly, from the statement we can understand that it was a very complicated situation. According to the Belarusian, it all started as he was leaving the office to the shop. While putting the coat on, someone took the match rifle from the case. Polish law obliges the owner of any firearm to have constant control over it. Losing the gun is a crime in the light of the Polish regulations. In such a case, the suspect had to protect the firearm from getting into the hands of another person. As he stated, despite requests, the person who took it, didn’t want to give it back. What is more, this person started to move towards the staircase and there was a high risk of loosing the rifle from the sight. So the owner of the gun asked his co-workers to call the police and he wanted to inform authorities himself.
The development of the situation forced the Belarusian to shoot warning shots. According to his statement, he shot partly because he wanted to attract the attention of others to the situation. This worked, as the Police arrived and the gun didn’t get into unauthorized hands.
Arrest didn’t apply
The prosecutor’s office requested an arrest of the suspect due to the serious allegation. However the court didn’t apply such legal steps in this case. According to the local media, two instances of the court took their stand in this regard. They informed that the evidence in the case does not show any reason for using any limitations of freedom toward the suspect so far. As a result the Belarusian remains at large.
Sport club doubts the guilt
According to the local media, the representatives of the sports club where the suspect was training doubt his guilt. As they underline, if there was any evidence proving the risk of a murder attempt, the court would without a doubt ask for custody. Additionally, the owners of firearms are under a very strict control in Poland. They have to go through medical, psychological and psychiatric examinations. The authorities carefully check the background of such an individual before issuing a license.
A chain of unfortunate events
Of course the authorities have access to all evidence in the case and they will judge accordingly. However, the local media state that it is possible, that what happened was a chain of unfortunate events which led to using a firearm in the workplace. The authorities will decide if that use was justified. We will inform you about the further development of the situation.
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