Slovak PM undergoes hours of surgery after assassination attempt
London: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico “will survive”, his deputy said, after he was shot multiple times in an assassination attempt and underwent more than four hours of emergency surgery.
Slovakia’s deputy prime minister Tomas Taraba told the BBC on Thursday (AEST) he believed the 59-year-old populist, pro-Russian leader’s operation had gone well and he was no longer in a life-threatening situation.
Fico was shot up to five times in the stomach, arm and leg as he greeted people in the town of Handlova, about 190 kilometres from the central European country’s capital, Bratislava.
A man with a gun licence was detained as a suspect, local media reported, with a government spokesman saying preliminary information “clearly” points to a political motivation.
It is the most serious attack on a European leader in decades, drawing shock and condemnation from Slovak officials and other leaders and stoking fears that Europe’s increasingly polarised and venomous political debates had tipped into violence.
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Taraba criticised the opposition parties, accusing them of using “false narratives” and painting Fico as “like almost a monster”, comments which he said did not belong in a democracy.
“I was very shocked ... fortunately as far as I know the operation went well – and I guess in the end he will survive ... he’s not in a life threatening situation at this moment,” he told the BBC.
The gunman was named in local media reports on Wednesday night as Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old resident of Levice in western Slovakia.
He is a self-described writer who previously worked as a security guard. In 2015, he founded the campaign group Against Violence, and had sought to get it officially registered in Slovakia.
Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi reported he had past links to a pro-Russian paramilitary group, Slovenski Branci, known for its links to the Kremlin. The group shared a photo on Facebook in 2016 that included the suspect.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured after the away-from-home government meeting in Handlova.Credit: TASR via AP
Slovakia, a member of NATO and the European Union, has little history of political violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden joined Slovakia’s EU partners in expressing shock and condemnation of the shooting.
The shooting came on the day parliament began discussing Fico’s government’s proposal to abolish Slovakia’s public broadcaster, and replace it with an institution opponents fear will be far more passive towards him and his allies within the populist-nationalist coalition.
Interior minister Matus Sutaj Estok said in a press conference that online “hate” was behind the attack, urging journalists, the public and politicians to “stop spreading hate”.
“We can’t respond to hate with hate. That is why I would like to ask you all to stop all this hate on social media, targeted at this or that political party.”
Police arrest a man after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured.Credit: TASR via AP
Other politicians linked the shooting with acute political divisions affecting Slovakia.
A Reuters witness heard several shots as Fico exited a building to shake hands with a crowd of people who had been waiting to greet him. A video showed civilians and guards detaining the suspect outside the cultural centre in Handlova. A man, wearing a pale blue shirt, was then wrestled to the ground, with his hands tied behind his back.
Fico, founder of the populist SMER party, began his fourth term in office last October leading a three-way Eurosceptic coalition. That grouping has been deeply at odds with liberal and pro-EU groups as it calls for tough anti-migrant measures and an end to sanctions against Russia.
His return to power sparked mass protests this year that echoed large-scale demonstrations in 2018 over the fatal shooting of a 27-year-old journalist who had been investigating alleged links between SMER and organised crime. Fico stepped down from his previous term amid those protests.
Rescue workers take Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica.Credit: TASR via AP
Describing the shooting as a “monstrous” crime, Putin said in a Telegram sent to Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova: “I know Robert Fico as a courageous and strong-minded man. I very much hope that these qualities will help him to survive this difficult situation.”
Biden offered US help to Slovakia, saying in a statement: “We condemn this horrific act of violence.” He said the US embassy was in “close touch” with the Slovakian government and was “ready to assist”.
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Slovakia’s biggest opposition party Progressive Slovakia called off a planned protest against government public broadcaster reforms set for Wednesday evening, local time.
During a three-decade career, Fico has moved between the pro-European mainstream and nationalistic positions opposed to EU and US policies. He has also shown a willingness to change course depending on public opinion or changed political realities.
An admirer of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Fico has grown increasingly critical of Western support for Ukraine in its war with invading Russian forces and has expressed opposition to allowing Kyiv to join NATO in the future.
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