- By Malu Corsino and Sarah Rainsford, in Bratislava
- BBC News
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is no longer in a life-threatening condition after being shot multiple times, Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Robert Fico said.
Thomas Taraba told the BBC that Fiku’s surgery went “well” and “I think he will survive in the end.”
Earlier, the Defense Minister said that Fico was “fighting for his life” after being seriously injured in an attack in the small town of Handlova.
One suspect was arrested at the scene of the shooting.
Interior Minister Matos Sutaj Istuka described the incident as a politically motivated assassination attempt.
The gunman fired five shots at close range, wounding Mr Fico in the stomach and arm.
After the shooting, he was taken to hospital and spent several hours in surgery “fighting for his life,” according to Defense Minister Robert Kalinac, who spoke at a news conference outside the hospital where Fico was being treated on Wednesday.
There has been no official update on the Prime Minister’s condition since then, but his second-in-command has since told BBC Newshour that Fico is “not in hospital”. [a] “The situation is life-threatening at this moment.”
“As far as I know, the operation went well, and I think he will survive in the end,” Taraba said.
Taraba added that the prime minister was hit “at very close range” and that “one bullet entered his abdomen and the second hit the joint.”
The gunman was among a small crowd of Fico supporters who gathered outside a cultural center in Handelova, where the prime minister was holding a meeting.
The shooting took Mr. Fico’s security officers completely by surprise. The footage shows the Prime Minister after he was shot, being carried by a number of officers, who put him in a car and took him away from the scene.
Police have not yet identified the alleged suspect. Unconfirmed local media reports say he is a 71-year-old writer and political activist.
A video widely circulated in Slovak media allegedly shows the suspect.
The man says in the footage that he does not agree with government policy and its attitude towards state media. The BBC does not know whether the person shown in the video is the perpetrator who was arrested at the scene or the circumstances in which he was filmed.
The shooting came on the day Parliament began discussing the government’s proposal to abolish the Slovak public broadcaster RTVS.
Thousands of Slovaks have protested against the proposed reform of the public broadcaster in recent weeks. However, a planned opposition-led demonstration was canceled on Wednesday as reports of the shooting emerged.
Image source, Getty Images
In his interview with the BBC, Deputy Prime Minister Taraba blamed the shooting on “false narratives” spread by Slovakia’s opposition parties.
“Our prime minister has mentioned several times in the past that he fears this will happen,” Taraba said in another interview with BBC’s World Tonight programme.
According to him, Mr. Fico warned that the way “the government was attacked through false narratives could increase people’s reaction and lead to something like this.”
Parliament was in session at the time of the attack, and Slovak media reported that one of Mr. Fico’s party colleagues shouted at opposition lawmakers and accused them of fueling the attack.
Interior Minister Stock accused the media of contributing to the climate that led to the shooting of the 59-year-old, and told a press conference: “Many of you are the ones who sow this hatred.”
Istok added that he believed “this assassination [attempt] “It was politically motivated.”
Reacting to news of the attack, Slovakia’s outgoing President Zuzana Caputova said: “Something so serious has happened that we cannot even realize it yet.”
She added: “The hate speech we are witnessing in society leads to acts of hatred.”
Fico returned to power in Slovakia after the elections that took place last September, as head of a nationalist populist coalition.
His first few months as Prime Minister were highly controversial, both in Slovakia and in the European Union. In January, he halted military aid to Ukraine, and last month he pushed through plans to abolish the RTVS system.
