Slovakia’s health minister said Saturday the prognosis for Prime Minister Robert Fico was “positive” after an assassination attempt, while the suspected gunman appeared in court for the first time.
Fico has been in hospital since Wednesday when a lone gunman shot him four times, including in the abdomen.
He underwent a five-hour surgery on Wednesday and a two-hour surgery on Friday, both at a hospital in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica.
“Yesterday’s surgery, which took two hours, contributed to a positive prognosis of the prime minister’s health condition,” Minister Zuzana Dolinkova told reporters. “The prime minister’s condition is stable, but despite this it’s still serious,” she added.
The suspected gunman, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, arrived in a special penal court in Pezinok northeast of the capital Bratislava on Saturday morning.
The court is considering a prosecutor’s request made Friday that Cintula be placed in pretrial detention after he had been charged with a premeditated murder attempt.
Cintula fired five shots at Fico and hit him four times as the prime minister was walking towards his supporters after a government meeting in the central mining town of Handlova.
Defense Minister and Deputy Premier Robert Kalinak, Fico’s closest political ally, said the prime minister was conscious and his condition allowed him to recover.
The 59-year-old Fico took office in October after his populist Smer party won a general election.
He is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on proposals for peace between Russia and Slovakia’s neighbor Ukraine and for halting military aid to Kyiv, which his government later did.
‘All these lies’
The assassination attempt has deeply shocked the EU and NATO member country of 5.4 million people, already sharply divided over politics for years.
Outgoing pro-Western President Zuzana Caputova and her successor Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who will take office in June, have called on fellow Slovaks to refrain from “confrontation” after the shooting.
They called a meeting of all parliamentary party leaders for Tuesday in a bid to show unity in the aftermath of the attack.
Kalinak however suggested Smer would snub the meeting. But he was among politicians pointing fingers at their opponents for allegedly causing the attack, slamming opposition politicians and “selected media” on Friday for labelling Fico as a criminal, dictator or Russian President Vladimir Putin’s servant before the attack.
Damien Simonart, with AFP
