A court has remanded in custody for three months a 21-year-old Ukrainian citizen, a student at a Lublin university, suspected of preparing to murder a random person out of racial hatred. The police and the Lublin prosecutor’s office announced the case on Monday, 12 October.
Report and arrest
As reported by Policja.pl (a statement from the Lublin Voivodeship Police Headquarters), on Friday, 9 October, in the afternoon, Lublin police officers received a report that a student at one of the local universities was announcing an knife attack and claimed he would kill a randomly encountered person that day. According to the police, the man was very agitated.
Officers detained the 21-year-old the same day. He had one knife on him, and two more, described by the police as specialist knives, were found at his place of residence.
Charge and custody
On Sunday, 11 October, the suspect was brought before the prosecutor’s office. He was charged with preparing to murder a randomly encountered person with a knife, motivated by racial hatred. The court ordered three months of pre-trial detention. The offence carries up to 15 years in prison.
Further details were provided by Marcin Kozak, spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, cited by Polsat News. The notification was filed by the authorities of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), after an employee reported signals from female participants of a seminar about aggressive, extremist statements made by one of the students.
What investigators established
According to the prosecutor’s office, during classes the suspect allegedly praised crimes, including those of a racist nature, and spoke of intent to take the lives of random people as part of the online challenge “Bloody Friday”. He also allegedly tried to persuade one of the female students to take part and offered to provide a knife.
The prosecutor’s office said the man was motivated by viewing graphic material on the Telegram app. A preliminary analysis of two phones and a laptop showed that he searched for content about torture and inflicting pain. Investigators stressed that the plans were foiled by the university’s quick reaction and police intervention.
The suspect has pleaded not guilty and given explanations disputing the investigators’ findings. According to the prosecutor’s office, he was not receiving psychiatric treatment, and in the student community he was regarded as quiet and calm. The university spokesman, Wojciech Andrusiewicz, told PAP that he is a criminology student and that the university authorities are cooperating with the police. He also appealed not to limit themselves to accusations and not to inflame interpersonal relations.
What next
The man is for now a suspect, and the presumption of innocence applies to him. He has been remanded for three months, during which time the prosecutor’s office will analyse the seized equipment and carry out further procedural steps. The statements do not indicate that anyone was harmed or that other people have been detained in the case.
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