The assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has sent geopolitical ripples across Europe and the world, as the populist leader represented a new force that challenged mainstream EU and NATO views on Ukraine and a whole host of other issues.
Now, it is reported that the suspect in his shooting an may not have been just a ‘lone wolf’ as previously believed.
The Slovakian interior minister stated as much, as their security services try to clarify the circumstances of the attack.
Fico is reportedly no longer in immediate danger but his condition is still very serious.
The five shots that hit him marked the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader in more than 20 years.
Reuters reported:
“Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said an investigation team had been set up, which would also look into whether the suspect acted as part of a group of people that had been encouraging each other to carry out an assassination.
One factor suggesting the involvement of other persons was that the suspect’s internet communications were deleted two hours after the assassination attempt, but not by the suspect and most likely not by his wife, Estok said. This indicated ‘the crime may have been committed by a certain group of people’, Estok told a news conference.”
Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said that, while Fico’s life was no longer in immediate danger, his condition is too serious for a move to a hospital in the capital Bratislava.
“‘The worst that we feared has (not happened), at least for the time being’, Kalinak told a news conference outside the hospital where Fico is being treated in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica. ‘We are all a little calmer. When we were saying that we want to get closer to a positive prognosis, then I believe that we are a step closer to that’, he added.”
The shooting suspect, Juraj Cintula, will remain in custody after being charged with attempted murder. He is a 71-year-old former security guard at a shopping mall.
“Estok said on Thursday that the suspect was angered by the government’s Ukraine policy. Fico’s government has ended official military support for Ukraine and taken a more pro-Russian line on the conflict than most European Union partners.
The government has said he became radicalized after Fico ally Peter Pellegrini won a presidential election last month, and that he had told police about his dissatisfaction with the government’s reforms of the prosecution service and public media – criticized by the opposition a well as the European Commission.”
Slovakian government and opposition trade accusations of stirring up divisions within society.
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