By Alek Rybczynski, CFP's Poland Reporter ——Bio and Archives--November 10, 2026
Editor’s Note: A third follow-up on-the-ground report from Alek Rybczynski, Canada Free Press’ long-time Columnist in Poland.
On the morning of November 9, the Kraków attacker died in hospital. After the attack his condition was reported as stable, then suddenly became critical. Voices are now being heard that the death of the 24-year-old assailant is highly convenient for the authorities, all the more so because his parents and sister are also dead. They were found shot, each with two bullets, on the fifth floor of an apartment building. None of the neighbors heard the shots.
Official sources state that they were killed early on Saturday morning, yet a relative of the murdered family had already been unable to reach anyone by phone on Friday. It is being said more and more loudly that the attacker’s family was not shot by him, because there is no hard evidence for this—only assumptions—and the authorities immediately announced it as a certainty.
There are many circumstances that are difficult to explain. It is unknown where the killer obtained an AR-15 rifle, body armor, and professionally selected equipment, or where he trained, acting like a trained commando. Other doubts are also being raised in discussions and on social media: how an ordinary resident of Ostrowiec, who possessed only a sports firearms permit and trained at a shooting club, could prepare such a coordinated operation, assemble an arsenal far exceeding the weapons he legally owned, carry out a precise, almost silent killing of his family, and then calmly drive 180 kilometers (over one hundred miles) to commit a massacre.
Episodes from the life of the attacker Michał Oksinski indicate, however, serious mental disorders already in his teenage years.
Legal highs, depression, solitary walks in the forest, fascination with Hitler, violence and weapons, sending lewd photos in private messages, suspected sexual orientation disorder, joking in the company of colleagues that “I’ll kill you all.”
It is precisely such psyches that are particularly susceptible to manipulation.
That is why some observers do not reject more radical hypotheses a priori. For some time now, warnings have been circulating about “false flag” operations being prepared against Poland, which sensitizes people to all events that destabilize the state.
There is no evidence for this, but the theory that the perpetrator acted under “mind control” is not even ruled out. There are many credible examples that such special-services operations are possible. The research of serious scientists supports this. We present only one example:
Dr. Colin Ross: a Canadian psychiatrist who analyzed thousands of pages of declassified CIA documents. In his publications he demonstrated that intelligence agencies successfully experimented with inducing so-called dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality). According to Ross, by traumatizing victims an “alter ego” was created—a dormant personality that could be activated by a predetermined password (for example, over the phone), carry out a task (including an attack), and, after returning to the original personality, completely forget the entire event.
Colin Ross’s research is more than twenty years old, so it can be assumed that today the technology of mind manipulation and control is even more terrifyingly advanced. Can one suspect that it was used in the Kraków operation? Disinformation is so widespread that any theory can seem possible.
The truth about the Kraków attack will probably remain a mystery for years, but it is plain to see that the Kraków tragedy is convenient for a government that is, with unprecedented haste, carrying out the takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal and introducing Act 3003.
The takeover of the Tribunal, called a putsch by most observers in the country and abroad, receded into the background after the massacre in Kraków. There is also little talk about Act 3003, the law approved by the Sejm a few days ago that strips the population of basic civil rights. Its critics, opposition politicians, and independent publicists call the law a “constitutional coup.” They emphasize the proposed right of the head of the Ministry of the Interior to freeze and confiscate assets out of court, as well as the ability to place opponents on a sanctions list and immediately block their accounts. This recalls the action of blocking the accounts of people supporting the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, but goes much further.
The regulations will strike at those who support “foreign interference and manipulation in the information environment.” Critics warn that this definition is so imprecise that, under the pretext of fighting disinformation, the government will be able to destroy any private individual, social organization, or media critical of the government.
This also means the return of censorship, and in a draconian version reminiscent of the infamous Stalinist times. A social media post critical of the authorities may be classified as acting on behalf of foreign services.
For violating or circumventing the sanctions, administrative penalties of up to 5 million dollars and up to 12 years’ imprisonment are threatened.
In Kraków and throughout Poland, a two-day period of mourning was held for the tragedy in which 6 people were killed (and three from the attacker’s family) and 15 were wounded, yet projects limiting personal freedoms and liberties are already being announced.
They have provoked a wave of criticism from libertarian, right-wing, and civil-rights circles, who accuse the authorities of exploiting a human tragedy to introduce drastic restrictions on personal freedoms. A radical tightening of access to firearms is already being announced, as well as restrictions on the right to assemblies and outdoor events (will this affect the planned huge Independence March on November 11 this year in Warsaw?).
Demands are also being raised for the introduction of advanced facial-recognition systems (AI) in the centers of large cities and the immediate blocking of traffic zones, not to mention the already rampant censorship and control of information on the internet—that is, sanctioned disinformation.
Opposition politicians, including Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik and Janusz Korwin-Mikke, have accused Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński and Prime Minister Donald Tusk of cynically exploiting the tragedy for political purposes and expanding a police state, before investigators had even established the perpetrator’s real motives.
Despite these depressing reflections, let us not forget the extraordinary people who found themselves at the center of the tragic events in Kraków. Two police officers displayed true heroism--senior constable Jakub Kulik and senior constable Artur Morański. After a chase down Grodzka Street through Stradom to Dietla, they engaged in a shootout with the assailant, who was stopped and overpowered. As a result of this action both officers suffered serious wounds.
It can be called a miracle that Prof. Michał Pędziwiatr and Dr. Mateusz Wierdak--outstanding surgeons from the University Hospital in Kraków, who were eating lunch with their families in a restaurant only a few dozen meters away--found themselves on the scene and, like two angels, immediately rushed to help. Thanks to their dedication, determination, and lightning-fast surgical assistance at the scene, the wounded police officers survived transport to the hospital, where doctors are fighting for their lives.
Other people sent by Providence were also in Kraków. Volunteers from the Irish formation Dublin Civil Defence, including officer James McConnell, who were spending a private vacation in the city, acted like Good Samaritans. Hearing the shots, they did not flee but heroically provided aid to the seriously wounded, shot passers-by even before the first ambulances arrived.
The whole world sympathizes with Poland. Unfortunately, part of the German press is adopting an outrageous narrative, a psycho manipulation suggesting that “the problem is not imported terrorism, but that terrorism resides inside Polish society.” According to this Warsaw correspondent, Viktoria Grossmann, “Poles must reflect on their own image.” This arrogance and manipulation is simply outrageous.
Poles are slowly emerging from the shock after the attack, but the escalation of fear does not subside. In the days following the Kraków tragedy we have already had a bomb alert that led to the evacuation of a school in the center of Kraków, a train of the InterCity was fired upon near Częstochowa, and strange columns of cars are driving through Warsaw on the eve of Independence Day. Is their goal the introduction of a state of emergency and full control over society?
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