Robert Fico’s Condition “Stable but Serious”

The clinical condition of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was the victim of a May 15 gun attack, is described as “very serious,” although he is stable after undergoing surgery.

Director of the F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica Miriam Lapunikova, where Fico was taken after the attack, told Reuters that the prime minister underwent a five-hour surgery, in which two teams of surgeons treated multiple wounds caused by five shots fired in the attack. The politician’s health condition was confirmed by Defense Minister Robert Kalinak in a conversation with Slovak news agency TASR: “Last night doctors managed to stabilize the situation. They will take further steps today to ensure his recovery.”

In the first hours after the attack, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said the act was clearly politically motivated. “We are doing everything we can to investigate this heinous act,” he said, explaining that he was demanding a special session of the Security Council.

According to Slovak media reports, the person who pulled the trigger was Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old man from Levice, an activist and poet who, ironically, founded an anti-violence movement in the past, worked for a private security service, and was the victim of the attack in 2016. The shotgun he fired is legally his.