Farmer plows up 200 metres of new asphalt in Gliwice, faces up to 10 years in prison

The incident

On Friday, 7 August, a 60-year-old farmer identified as Józef M. drove a Ursus tractor equipped with a plow onto freshly laid asphalt on ulica Rybacka in Gliwice's Ostropa district. He destroyed approximately 200 metres of the new road surface, including both the asphalt layer and the substructure. Road workers managed to prevent further damage by blocking the tractor with their own machinery. The farmer was arrested on the spot; a breath test showed he was sober. His tractor was towed to a police lot, and officers discovered it lacked mandatory third-party liability insurance.

The farmer told police he was the owner of the road and that the construction work was illegal. He also threatened to continue destroying the surface after release. Gliwice mayor Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka posted video of the incident on Facebook, stating that the entire road belongs to the city, as confirmed by land registry documents and a surveyor present at the site.

Legal consequences

On Sunday, 9 August, the prosecutor's office in Gliwice charged the farmer with destruction of property of significant value. The same day, a court ordered three months of temporary arrest. The court justified the decision by citing the severity of the potential sentence, whose upper limit exceeds eight years, and the possibility that the suspect could take unlawful action to avoid punishment. The farmer faces between one and ten years in prison. He confessed to the act but maintained that the land was his property. According to the prosecutor's office, he acted in a planned and deliberate manner, using agricultural equipment that guaranteed the intended result.

Lawyer Karolina Pilawska told Polsat News that the arrest was unnecessary. She noted that the case was straightforward, the man had confessed, and there was no risk of tampering or flight. She also said that compensation had previously been ordered for the farmer but he had not collected it.

The land dispute

The conflict over the land stretches back more than two decades. Mariusz Kopeć, spokesperson for the Gliwice city office, told Rzeczpospolita that the municipality has owned the land since 2001, when it passed to the city under article 98 of the real estate management act. Kopeć said the farmer himself had originally requested that a road be designated from two of his plots, which then transferred to municipal ownership by law.

Katarzyna Polak, head of the legal status regulation department at the municipal road authority (ZDM), told Fakt that one plot, numbered 802, was taken via a decision by the Silesian voivode in 2021, and the corresponding compensation was paid out. Two other plots, 803 and 804, were taken through a division decision because the local zoning plan designated the area for a public road. The farmer refused to accept compensation for those two plots, and the money remains in a court deposit. Polak said the farmer consistently disputed that the land belonged to the municipality.

Community reaction

Neighbors on ulica Rybacka said they had waited 30 years for the road to be paved. Resident Dagmara Malinowska told Fakt the street had been full of potholes for decades. She noted that the farmer did not live on Rybacka and questioned why the paved road would have harmed him, since it would have given him better access to his fields.

Łukasz Wieczorek, chairman of the Ostropa district, said the farmer had previously damaged road edges and curbs, insisting the work was being done on his property. One neighbor told o2.pl that the farmer had once measured the land and pointed out sections he believed belonged to him.

Politician and lawyer Janusz Wojciechowski filed a petition to the Prosecutor General seeking the farmer's release from arrest. He argued that the farmer's actions could constitute "defense of field" and that arresting an elderly man was disproportionate. He also called for an investigation into who actually managed the land before the road was built.

Online debate focused on a concrete post visible in the video of the incident. Some internet users argued it was a property boundary marker, pointing to its appearance on Google Maps and the fact that two such posts exist near the destroyed section. Others said it marked a medium-pressure gas pipeline, noting that the geoportal shows a gas network running through the exact spot, with the letter "L" on the post indicating a pipe turn direction. The prosecutor's office has not addressed the post's significance in its public statements.