Progressive Polish mayor dies after being stabbed at charity event

The mayor of a city in Poland has died after being stabbed onstage during a charity event Sunday.

Pawel Adamowicz, who has been the mayor of Gdansk for 20 years, was attacked while live on television. The suspect who rushed the stage was recently released from prison, BBC reports. Adamowicz underwent five hours of surgery but died from his injuries, Poland's Health Minister confirmed.

Adamowicz, 53, was attending an annual charity event that raises money for hospital equipment. He was speaking onstage when a 27-year-old with a criminal record stabbed him in apparent revenge for his imprisonment. The suspect said Adamowicz's former Civic Platform party "had wrongfully imprisoned him" and that he was "tortured" in jail, BBC reports via local television footage. He is believed to have used a media pass to get past security, per Al Jazeera.

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Adamowicz was re-elected to lead Gdansk, a city of about 500,000 people, for a sixth term in the fall. He had left the Civic Platform party to run as an independent, The Associated Press says. He was known as a progressive supporter of "sex education in schools, LGBT rights and tolerance for minorities," and "often mingled freely with citizens," AP writes. A spokeswoman for the opposing Law and Justice party said Adamowicz's murder should be "absolutely condemned by all" sides of the "political spectrum."