Colonel Przybył says there is a zł.1 million bounty on his head Marek Zakrzewski/PAP

Poland’s legal establishment was rocked last week when Colonel Mikołaj Przybył, a military prosecutor, shot himself in the head during a break at a press conference in Poznań while journalists and television cameras were just meters away. Colonel Przybył survived the suicide attempt, but its reverberations have unveiled serious conflicts at the heart of Poland’s system of prosecution and compelled the president and the prime minister to speak out regarding the controversy.

The incident occurred following an impassioned statement to the press by Colonel Przybył. In the statement, he defended the actions of the Military Prosecutor’s Office in Poznań during an investigation into information leaks concerning the 2010 Smolensk air crash disaster. Military prosecutors have been accused of illegally attempting to access phone records of journalists covering the probe of the crash, in which Polish President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others perished.

Colonel Przybył insisted that military prosecutors had broken no laws and that the media was being manipulated in a campaign to discredit the Military Prosecutor’s Office so that it could be subsumed into its civilian counterpart. This, he said, would lead to his investigations into large-scale corruption in the military “getting lost in the sea of cases” in the civilian prosecutor’s office.

He ended his statement saying he would “defend the honor of the Polish soldier,” and asked the journalists to leave the conference room so that he could take a short break. Moments later, a shot was heard coming from the conference room and journalists rushed in to find him lying in a pool of blood.

‘My hand shook’

After being rushed to the hospital, it was discovered that Colonel Przybył had shot himself through the cheek. The next day, he spoke to Radio Zet, saying, “I put the pistol barrel in my mouth but my hand shook because I saw the door handle move. A man who wanted to shift the cables saved me … the bullet hit my cheek and didn’t go through my head.”

In several interviews and statements to the media over the next few days, Mr Przybył said he had been partially motivated by intimidation tactics taken against him during his corruption investigations, including the slashing of his tires and the killing of his dog. He said that due to his investigations into corruption in the military, there was a “million-złoty bounty” on his head.

Once Colonel Przybył was considered to be in stable condition, he was moved to the psychiatric ward of the hospital for further evaluation.

Prosecutors disagree

Mr Przybył’s immediate superior, General Krzysztof Parulski, told the media that he agreed with the statements the colonel had made at the press conference, adding that the civilian prosecutor’s office had acted “unethically” during its investigation into military prosecutors’ attempts to obtain journalists’ phone records.

However Poland’s top prosecutor, Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet, said he disagreed with Mr Przybył’s account.

President against dismissal

Both Mr Seremet and General Parulski were summoned by President Bronisław Komo-rowski to discuss the “structural conflict” between the military and civil prosecutor’s offices. The president said afterwards that he didn’t think “personnel changes” would solve the matter, a sign that he disagreed with those who were calling for the general to be dismissed for having publicly criticized the Prosecutor General.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, seems to hold a different view. At a press conference on Wednesday, he said he was “absolutely certain” that loyalty to one’s superior, especially in an institution like the prosecutor’s office, had to be “indisputable.”

He added that if the two prosecutors couldn’t work together, a solution would have to be found. Many took the statements as an indication that he felt General Parulski should be the one to go.

Nevertheless, the decision is not the prime minister’s to make. The Prosecutor General can only dismiss General Parulski with the approval of the defense minister and the president, who serves as commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces.

Considering President Komorowski’s initial statements on the issue, it seems General Parulski isn’t going anywhere, and the conflict between the two men, and the two institutions, looks set to continue.