New Delhi: Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, was shot at and injured in the abdomen Wednesday after a government meeting in the town of Handlova, Slovak media has reported.
According to a post on Fico’s Facebook page, the PM is being evacuated by helicopter to the city of Banská Bystrica instead of capital Bratislava because of the need for quick intervention.
Slovak broadcaster Ta3 said that Fico was shot at four times and got hit in the abdomen once. Local police authorities have detained the suspected shooter.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, “strongly” condemned the “vile attack” on Fico in a post on X.
“Such acts of violence have no place in our society and undermine democracy, our most precious common good. My thoughts are with PM Fico and his family,” she stated.
Fico, 59, resuscitated his political career last year, coming back to power after his party, the SMER-SD, won the maximum votes during the 2023 general elections in Slovakia.
The four-term prime minister had stepped down in 2018 after facing mounting public pressure over the murder of a Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. His party leaders also faced numerous corruption cases at the time.
Fico’s political positions have often shifted from pro-European Union to anti-European Union, depending on the perceptions of the Slovak public.
The largest opposition party called off planned protests after news of the shooting broke Wednesday, according to media reports.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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