Authorities charged a man on Thursday with the attempted assassination of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, saying the attack was motivated by the victory of a Fico ally in last month’s election.
According to the news agency AFP, the condition of the Slovak prime minister is already stable, but still “very critical”.
Surgeons struggled for hours in the operating theater to save the 59-year-old shooting victim. Slovakia’s president was targeted while speaking to the public on Wednesday followingnoon.
Slovakia’s Interior Minister Matus Istok said: ‘This is the act of a lone individual who was unhappy with the results of the presidential election.’
Slovak President-elect Peter Pellegrini, a Fico supporter who won an election in April, urged political parties on Thursday to stop campaigning for June’s EU parliamentary elections.
Slovakian politics has been divided between pro-European and nationalist camps for years, while the latest election was heavily influenced by misinformation and verbal attacks on social media.
“Doctors have stabilized Fico’s condition, but unfortunately his condition is still very serious because the injuries are complicated,” Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinik said.
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Footage of the immediate followingmath of the shooting shows security agents lifting the injured Fico off the ground and into a black car.
On the other hand, police handcuffed a man on the sidewalk nearby.
Fico, whose party won last September’s general election, is a four-time prime minister and political veteran.
He is accused of changing his country’s foreign policy in favor of the Kremlin.
According to media reports, the alleged attacker is a 71-year-old man and a writer.
“I don’t know what the father was thinking, what he was planning, why it happened,” the son of the alleged attacker told Slovakian news site aktuality.sk.
Since taking office in October 2023, Fico has also questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty and made comments that soured relations with the neighboring country.
Since his election, Fico has stopped sending weapons from his country to Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia in 2022.
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2024-07-12 00:39:41