Man jailed for seven years over death of Polish journalist

Thirty-one-year-old Bartosz N (name withheld due to Polish privacy laws) had been charged with the 2015 murder of a journalist from Mława, in central Poland.

The victim's wife's lawyer said the sentence would be appealed.

The court announced that the charge was reduced from murder, which carried a punishment of eight to 25 years in jail, to grievous bodily harm which resulted in the death of the journalist, Łukasz Masiak. Sentences for grievous bodily harm vary from two to 12 years.

The court found that Bartosz N kicked Masiak in the neck, rupturing a vertebral artery and causing massive bleeding.

According to witness testimony, Bartosz N's attack was not premeditated and he did not want to kill the victim.

The court also added that the attack was not motivated by Masiak's work as a journalist.

But the widow's lawyer, Marek Borowy, said that immediately before and after the attack on Masiak, Bartosz N contacted a suspected gangster who was the subject of some of the journalist's articles. The suspected gangster is currently wanted by police, the lawyer added.

Borowy also said that, while the attack may not have been a “hit”, “when a culprit kicks someone he must be aware that he can kill”. According to Borowy, the suspect trained in martial arts.

The journalist, who wrote for a local newspaper and ran his own website, was killed on 14 June 2015 after an attack at a bowling alley. His assailant went into hiding and was wanted on a European Arrest Warrant. He turned himself into the Prosecutor's Office in February 2016.

Before his death, Masiak had received threats relating to some of the issues he reported on.

(vb/pk)