Slovak PM Robert Fico’s life no longer in danger four days after assassination attempt

Robert Fico's deputy said on Sunday (May 19) that the Slovak prime minister is no longer in immediate danger but is still in a serious condition. On Wednesday, Fico was injured in an assassination attempt when he was greeting the supporters.

Fico was at one stage said to be fighting for his life after a lone gunman fired five shots and hit him four times, including in the abdomen.

The suspect was tackled immediately. A Slovak court on Saturday decided to put the suspect in the attempted assassination of Fico in pre-trial detention. The suspected gunman was identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula.

Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak told a news conference outside the University F. D. Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica, "We are all a little calmer."

"He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious and he requires intensive care," Kalinak, who is Fico's closest political ally, further said.

After the assassination attempt, Fico underwent a five-hour operation on Wednesday and another on Friday at a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.

"We can consider his condition stable with a positive prognosis," Kalinak said, further adding, "We all feel a bit more relaxed now." The deputy also said that Fico would stay at Banska Bystrica for the moment.

Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that if one of the shots "went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister's liver".

On Saturday, Zuzana Dolinkova, Slovakia's health minister said that the prognosis for the 59-year-old health condition was "positive".

"Yesterday's surgery, which took two hours, contributed to a positive prognosis of the prime minister's health condition," Dolinkova had told reporters.

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Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told TA3, "If the shot went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister's liver."

The 59-year-old Fico took office in October after his party won a general election and he is serving his fourth term as prime minister. During the campaign, he proposed peace between Russia and Slovakia's neighbour Ukraine and also vowed to halt military aid to Kyiv, which his government later did.

(With inputs from agencies)