Zbigniew Ziobro was speaking as prosecutors investigated the shocking murder of the mayor of the northern Polish port city of Gdańsk, who was attacked and stabbed several times by a 27-year-old knife-wielding man during a high-profile annual charity drive on Sunday evening.
Paweł Adamowicz, 53, died the next day in a hospital from severe wounds despite efforts by doctors to save him.
"If it is determined" that the murderer was of sound mind at the time of committing the crime, “life imprisonment is the only penalty I can imagine in the absence of the death penalty in the Polish legal system," Ziobro, who also serves as Poland’s prosecutor-general, told public broadcaster Polish Radio.
He at the same time announced measures to introduce harsher penalties for those found guilty of the most serious crimes.
"It cannot be that those who commit such heavy crimes get away with relatively lenient sentences," Ziobro said.
Poland’s interior minister has said that the man who knifed and fatally wounded Adamowicz is a repeat offender who was in the past convicted of armed robberies.
According to reports, the man, identified only as "Stefan W.," had a previous criminal record of four bank robberies.
He served five-and-a-half years in prison and was discharged in December, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.
Poland’s lawmakers on Wednesday observed a minute’s silence to honour the murdered mayor.
Adamowicz, who was mayor of Gdańsk for more than 20 years, is due to be buried in the northern port city on Saturday.
He will be laid to rest at the local Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a centuries-old Roman Catholic church, officials told a news conference on Wednesday.
Memorial ceremonies for Adamowicz will begin with a special session of the Gdańsk City Council on Thursday and include a public display of his coffin for residents to pay their last respects, deputy mayor Aleksandra Dulkiewicz told reporters.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda has declared a national day of mourning in honour of the murdered politician, to be observed from 5 pm on Friday to 7 pm on Saturday.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP/IAR