BRATISLAV.- The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, underwent a new operation after being shot in the middle of the week and remained in serious condition, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak.
Fico, 59, was shot multiple times on Wednesday while greeting supporters after a government meeting in Handlova, a former mining town, in an attack that has shocked the country.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the FD Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica, where the president was taken by helicopter after the shooting, said that a CT scan was performed and that he is awake and stable in an intensive care unit. The politician’s condition is “very serious,” she added.
Fico returned to the operating room for an intervention in which dead tissue that had remained in his body was removed, Lapunikova explained.
“I think it will take several more days until we definitively know the direction of his further development,” Kaliniak said in statements to reporters present at the hospital.
Fico has been a divisive figure inside and outside of Slovakia for years. His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform led his European Union and NATO partners to worry that the country might abandon a pro-Western course, especially on issues related to Ukraine.
On the other hand, the man accused of firing the shots was escorted by the police to his home on Friday morning in a measure that, according to the press, was part of an operation to search for evidence.
State television, Markiza, showed images of the suspect being taken to his home in the town of Levice and reported that police seized a computer and several documents. The police did not comment as the prosecutor’s office prohibits making public the suspect’s identity and other details of the case.
Government officials had described the suspect the day before as a “lone wolf” who did not belong to any political group, although they previously indicated that the attack was politically motivated.
Unconfirmed reports published in the press suggested that the suspect could be a 71-year-old retiree, known to be an amateur poet and who may have worked as a security guard at a shopping center in the southwest of the country.
The presidential office indicated on Friday that work was underway to organize a meeting between the leaders of the parties represented in parliament on Tuesday. The country’s outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, announced the initiative the day before along with her replacement, Peter Pellegrini, in an attempt to reduce social tensions.
