POLAND’S Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski confirmed today that Gdansk city Mayor Pawel Adamowicz died from the stab wounds he sustained while speaking at a charity fundraiser in the city on Sunday night. 

The 53-year-old mayor was speaking at the annual nationwide event to raise funds for the country’s hospitals when a man climbed on stage and plunged a knife into his heart. 

Mr Adamowicz grabbed his stomach and fell over while the assailant raised his arms in the air, brandishing a 5.6 inch blade, and told the crowd this was an act of political revenge. 

“My name is Stefan,” he shouted. “I was jailed but innocent.”

He claimed the centrist political party to which Mr Adamowicz once belonged and which governed the country from 2007 to 2015, Civic Platform, had tortured him.

“That’s why Adamowicz just died,” he yelled before he was apprehended. 

A Polish police spokesman said the suspect — a 27-year-old man who is an ex-convict who spent five-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted for his involvement in a series of bank robberies — acted alone and out of “irrational” motives. 

Officer Mariusz Ciarka said police were investigating how the suspect obtained the press pass which allowed him access to the stage and whether it was authentic. 

Piotr Olejarczyk, a journalist for Polish news portal Onet, said he had been admitted to the event by saying he was a journalist. 

Doctors at the scene resuscitated Mr Adamowicz and hurried him to the Medical University of Gdansk. 

After a five-hour operation, chief doctor for the Gdansk region Jerzy Karpinski had said yesterday afternoon that Mr Adamowicz was on life support and that “prognosis for his life and health is uncertain.”

City residents were reportedly taking time off work to donate blood to the liberal mayor. 

Upon news of Mr Adamowicz’s death, Gdansk lowered its flag to half-mast and the country’s prosecutors said they have raised the charges from attempted murder to murder. 

Mr Adamowicz, who had been the city’s mayor since 1998, was a progressive voice in Polish politics, supporting LGBT rights and tolerance for minorities.