Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and wounded on Wednesday when multiple shots were fired at him as he greeted the public after a government meeting.
Fico was taken to hospital by his security detail after the shooting, while his attacker was detained by police. According to Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba, Fico has survived the surgery and is expected to recover.
According to local media reports, four shots were fired at Fico as he shook hands with supporters outside a meeting in Handlova, around 150km east of Bratislava. At least one of the shots struck the prime minister, witnesses reported.
16 May 2024
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Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky condemned the attack on Fico. “Every effort should be made to ensure that violence does not become the norm in any country,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
After becoming prime minister for a third time in October 2023, Fico reversed the previous government’s decision to send weapons to Ukraine. He also argued that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia should be resolved through diplomacy.
Officials and commentators have linked the shooting with incendiary rhetoric and an overall toxic political environment in the country.
“The political climate in Slovakia… was very polarized for a number of years,” former government adviser Milan Nic told the BBC. He added that politicians in Slovakia have been receiving death threats, including outgoing President Zuzana Caputova.
Fico is conscious after surgery, the Dennik N daily reported late Wednesday night.
He was operated on in the Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica.
Slovakia’s parliament has tightened security and adopted additional measures to protect MPs, the news agency TASR reported.
The parliamentary session has been suspended until next week, and visits to the National Council building have been temporarily banned.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini and Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky have decided to cut their foreign trips short and return to Bratislava.
Pellegrini described the attempt on Fico’s life as “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy.”
“I am horrified by where the hatred towards another political opinion can lead. We don’t have to agree on everything, but there are plenty of ways to express our disagreement democratically and legally,” the president-elect wrote on X.
15 May 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he was “deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico.”
“God bless him and his country!” he wrote.
Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba told BBC’s Newshour on Wednesday night that Fico “is not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”
“Fortunately, as far as I know, the operation went well – and I guess in the end he will survive,” Taraba said.
“There is no doubt” that the attack on Fico was a politically motivated assassination attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak told reporters outside the hospital in Banska Bystrica. “The inability to accept the will of some part of the public, which some group does not like, is the result that they have worked towards today,” said the minister, seemingly referring to Fico’s political opponents.
Earlier, TA3 News published a video in which the detained suspect told police that he shot Fico because he “disagreed” with his government’s policies.
Fico’s security detail was “not in order,” the former head of the Office for the Protection of Constitutional Officials, Juraj Zabojnik, told Dennik N. “When four or five shots are fired, someone is guilty. I didn't see anyone jumping in front of the prime minister,” Zabojnik said.
The security team should have placed operatives among the crowd, he continued, adding that while “it may happen that the first shot gets out,” Fico should have been shielded from any subsequent shots.
“When something like this happens and with such a large body of security personnel, it will be a very tough subject of investigation,” Zabojnik concluded.
Fico is still being operated on, Labor Minister Erik Tomas told TV Markiza. The operation will take a long time as several of the prime minister’s organs were damaged, Tomas said.
Footage has emerged showing the moment Fico was shot. The video shows the prime minister shaking hands with supporters across a metal barrier, before the gunman fires around five times. As Fico collapses, the attacker is swarmed by security guards and bystanders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he was “indignant” to hear of the “heinous” attempt on Fico’s life. “I know Robert Fico to be a courageous and strong-spirited man. I very much hope that these qualities will help him to withstand this difficult situation,” Putin said in a statement.
The Ta3 TV network has named the attacker as Juraj Cintula, born in 1953. Cintula is reportedly a poet and founder of the Slovak Association of Writers, and a supporter of the opposition Progressive Slovakia party.
In a statement, the Slovak Association of Writers said that it would investigate whether Cintula is a member and revoke his membership if so. “We express our indignation at such a brutal act, which has no parallel in the history of Slovakia.”
Slovak President Zuzana Caputova has urged the public to refrain from drawing hasty conclusions about the attack on Fico, and to wait for information from the police.
Multiple media outlets have identified Fico’s attacker as a 71-year-old man from the town of Levice. According to the Dennik N newspaper, the man shot Fico with a legally owned short weapon.
The attempt on Fico’s life is an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy, President-elect Peter Pellegrini said in a statement. “If we express differing political views with guns in the squares, and not in the polling stations, we threaten everything that we have built together during the 31 years of Slovak sovereignty,” he wrote.
Pellegrini, an ally of Fico, defeated ex-foreign minister Ivan Korcok in a vote last month, and will replace the pro-Western Zuzana Caputova as head of state in June.
Fico was hit “multiple times” and his condition is “life-threatening,” the prime minister’s office announced on Facebook. He is currently being airlifted from Handlova to a hospital in Banska Bystrica as flying him to Bratislava would take too long, Fico’s office added. “The next few hours will decide” whether he survives, the statement concluded.
Footage shared on social media showed a stricken Fico being helped to his car by his security detail. The politician was bundled into the back of the vehicle and rushed away, while police officers handcuffed his suspected attacker. The suspect appears to have shot Fico from point-blank range.
Fico was “wounded in the abdomen and chest,” Slovakia’s Pravda news outlet reported. Other media outlets described his condition as “serious.”