Poland’s top police officer was hospitalised after firing a grenade launcher gifted to him by Ukraine in his office, according to reports.
Jarosław Szymczyk, Commander-in-Chief of the Police, was injured after what the authorities describe as a “violent release of energy” at police headquarters in the Polish capital of Warsaw.
Prosecutors are investigating “an act consisting of unintentionally causing a violent release of energy that threatened the life or health of many people or property,” according to a statement quoted by The Guardian.
Poland’s interior ministry has characterised the incident as “an explosion in a room next to the office of the police chief,” explaining that “[o]ne of the presents the police chief received during his working visit to Ukraine on December 11 and 12 exploded.”
“The Polish side has asked the Ukrainian side to provide an explanation,” the ministry’s statement added.
Polish media outlets such as Onet, the country’s most popular online news portal, claim to have received information that Szymczyk himself caused the explosion by firing the gift “from one of the heads of the Ukrainian services” — described as a grenade launcher — in the belief that it was unloaded.
The explosion is said to have damaged three floors of the headquarters building, with up to two people other than the police chief having sustained minor injuries.
Whether the Ukrainian official who gave it to him was aware of it containing live munitions is unclear, but Onet has suggested that it allegedly being in the hands of the police chief in his office raises a number of legal concerns regardless.
“I know there was no criminal intent, but the commander-in-chief illegally smuggled weapons across the border. He later used it illegally, putting many people at risk. He should be charged,” a security source told WP Wiadomości.
Nevertheless, having now left hospital, Polish media reports Szymczyk has not yet been questioned by prosecutors.