A 66-year-old man has been charged with nine offenses including an attempt to “violently overthrow the state authorities.” A man suspected of planning to assassinate Poland’s prime minister has been charged with attempting to “violently overthrow the state authorities” after investigators found explosives at the suspect’s home, prosecutors have said. The 66-year-old suspect, named only as Krzysztof N. under Polish privacy laws, has been charged with nine offenses. The most serious is plotting to kill the prime minister and his cabinet using explosives, a prosecution service spokesman said on Tuesday. The man was arrested on Sunday following reports from Prime Minister Donald Tusk that he had received death threats by email. Krzysztof N’s apartment was searched on Sunday afternoon by members of the State Protection Service in cooperation with the police, Poland’s state-run PAP news agency reported, adding that over a dozen items had been found. “It was established that these were improvised explosive materials,” the prosecutors’ spokesman said, elaborating that metal ball-bearings were found inside firework-type pyrotechnic devices. A senior security official said at the weekend there had been a “high likelihood” that threats against Tusk and also against Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz would have been carried out. ‘Forcible seizure of power’ Other charges facing Krzysztof N. relate to recordings posted online promoting "an ideology centered on the forcible seizure of power in Poland,” prosecutors said. They added that the suspect had also promoted a war of aggression, including in Ukraine, and had also incited “crimes based on nationality, ethnicity, race, or political affiliation.” Krzysztof N. is expected to face a remand hearing on Wednesday. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison. A second man, a 46-year-old, was detained by police on Monday and charged with calling publicly for the murder of Tusk and other government officials. That suspect issued online incitements to kill senior political figures including Włodzimierz Czarzasty, speaker of Poland’s lower house of parliament, prosecutors said. While violent politically-motivated crime is relatively rare in Poland, the country is deeply polarized. It has also faced security threats linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine, though officials have not suggested that Moscow had a hand in the alleged plot to kill the prime minister.
