Michał O. is a 24-year-old Polish citizen from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. According to prosecutors, on Saturday, 7 November, he shot dead six people in the Main Market Square in Kraków, and on the same day, three members of his family in Ostrowiec. The National Prosecutor’s Office (PK) classified the attack in Kraków as a terrorist offence. The suspect is in critical condition in hospital and has not yet been charged.
What we know about the suspect
- He is 24 years old, is a Polish citizen and lived in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, the prosecutor’s office and police said.
- He had no prior convictions and was not previously recorded.
- He had a firearms licence. According to prosecutors, it covered two weapons. His father, one of the victims, had a licence for nine firearms and was a shooting instructor.
- According to the Kraków prosecutor’s office, he fired an automatic weapon. Additional firearms and ammunition were found in his car.
- Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz denied reports that he had been a soldier: „The man was not and is not a soldier of the Polish Armed Forces and never had anything to do with the military”.
The Świt Starachowice Sports Club, which had been linked to the suspect, stated that „this person was never trained at our club in dynamic, tactical or combat shooting”. A club representative told TVP Info that the 24-year-old was at the shooting range for the last time at the end of August, and only twice in 2026. The club is cooperating with the authorities.
The attack on the Main Market Square
On Saturday, shortly after 3 p.m., a masked attacker drove a car onto the Main Market Square from ul. Sławkowska and shot at random people. He then fled through Grodzka and Stradomska streets. At the intersection of Stradomska and Dietla streets, police officers shot him and subdued him. The first patrol acted 23 seconds after the report (police timeline of the operation).
Six people died – four women and two men. According to Małopolska Voivode Krzysztof Klęczar, among the dead are four Polish citizens, a British citizen and a woman who is not a Polish citizen. Sixteen people were injured, including two police officers and the perpetrator himself. We described the course of the attack in our article on the arrest of the shooter in the Market Square.
Killings in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski
On Saturday evening, police officers, including counter-terrorism officers, entered the suspect’s family home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. The bodies of three people with gunshot wounds were found there. According to the Świętokrzyskie police, they are the suspect’s parents and his 21-year-old sister (Magdalena Oksińska) (more on the search of the house). Prosecutors said they died on 7 November, the day of the attack in Kraków.
Investigation: terrorism and three murders
On Sunday, a prosecutor from the Małopolska unit of the Department for Organised Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office opened a single investigation covering both cases. It concerns the killing of six people in Kraków and the attempted murder of many others, including police officers, as a terrorist offence, as well as the killing of three people in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (Article 148 § 3 of the Penal Code). „The evidence indicates that these acts were committed by the same person” – the National Prosecutor’s Office wrote. Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said both offences carry a penalty of life imprisonment.
The suspect is in hospital under supervision of the authorities. Kraków District Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Prosecutor Tomasz Waszczuk said that once the 24-year-old’s health allows, prosecutors will charge him and decide on a preventive measure; questioning „may not be possible in the coming hours or days”. Investigators will also examine what the suspect did before the attack, including the issue of his firearms licence (more on the prosecutor’s decision).
More on the Kraków attack
- Prosecutors: attack in Kraków will be prosecuted as a terrorist offence
- Police publish timeline of Kraków operation. Intervention in the 3rd minute
- Police reveal new information after search of Michał O.’s flat
- Tusk: dead people found in the home of the Kraków attacker
- National mourning on Sunday and Monday
- Kraków attack in the global media
- Kraków attack: what we know – live updates
