Będzin. Sentenced to life in prison for killing two people, he hid in the Netherlands for several years. He has just returned to Poland

After committing the crime, the detained man left Poland and hid abroad. Therefore, the District Court in Katowice issued an arrest warrant for him, a European Arrest Warrant and a red note from Inetrpol.

The search for Rafał P. was taken up by Silesian “headhunters”, who obtained information indicating possible connections of the wanted man with several European countries.

ENFAST, a European police cooperation network dealing with the search for the most dangerous criminals, was involved in the case, the Polish representative office of which is located in the Search and Identification of Persons Department of the Criminal Bureau of the Police Headquarters. Police officers of this cell, as part of international cooperation, checked every information regarding Rafał P.

Additionally, Rafał P.'s image was published on the Europol – Europe's Most Wanted Fugitives List website, containing information about the most wanted criminals in Europe.

It was established that the wanted person was hiding in the Netherlands. A Dutch search team specializing in apprehending the most dangerous criminals verified the information obtained from Polish officers.

As a result of cooperation between the Polish and Dutch police and many coordinated actions, in the morning hours of February 3, 2024, the wanted man he was arrested in one of the houses in Schijndel.

The Dutch court agreed to the extradition of Rafał P. to Poland. Less than three months later, on April 25, 2024, the man was transported by military plane to the Chopin airport in Warsaw and then placed in prison.

At the beginning of 2006, the tenement house at ul. burned down. Modrzejewska in Będzin. The bodies of two people were found inside. DNA tests confirmed that she was the 59-year-old owner of the building and the 47-year-old caretaker. In turn, the autopsy showed that the cause of death for both was multiple head injuries. The main suspect was Rafał P., who rented a premises in this building. According to press reports, he was in rent arrears.

Rafał P. was first sentenced to life imprisonment in 2008, but he was acquitted seven years later. The final verdict was passed at the end of 2019. The District Court in Katowice found him guilty of murdering two people and setting fire to a tenement house, sentencing him to life imprisonment. The man has been wanted since then.