Prosecutor shoots himself at press conference

A POLISH military prosecutor shot himself in the head yesterday after abruptly cutting short a news conference in which he had defended a military investigation into leaks related to an aircraft crash that killed Poland's president in Russia two years ago.

A POLISH military prosecutor shot himself in the head yesterday after abruptly cutting short a news conference in which he had defended a military investigation into leaks related to an aircraft crash that killed Poland's president in Russia two years ago.

Mikolaj Przybyl was taken to hospital after reporters found him on the floor of his office in a pool of blood.

Przybyl had asked the reporters to leave his office after he criticised media leaks from the ongoing probe into the April 10 2010 crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, mostly senior Polish officials, in Smolensk, western Russia.

Several news outlets showed footage of Przybyl's body behind his desk before an ambulance took him to hospital.

Poland's chief prosecutor, Andrzej Seremet, told a news conference later in Warsaw that Przybyl was likely to recover.

Seremet also said he disagreed with some of the comments made by Przybyl at the news conference.

Seremet said military prosecutors had been right to seek journalists' cellphone records while searching for the source of leaks in the Smolensk investigation, but that they had broken the law by also seeking access to text messages.

"This case has been accompanied by so much emotion, including unnecessary hysteria, in my view," said Seremet, who also contradicted comments made by Przybyl over a planned shake-up of the military prosecution service.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said he was "concerned" about the incident and asked the national security bureau to monitor the situation.

The Smolensk crash investigation remains a sensitive political issue for Poland and for its relations with Moscow.

The leader of the main opposition party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski - twin brother of the late president - has accused the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk of conniving with Russia to cover up the real causes of the disaster.