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Slovakia’s PM expected to survive assassination attempt as shock reverberates across Europe

Slovakia’s prime minister is expected to survive after being shot multiple times and seriously injured during an assassination attempt on Wednesday, according to his deputy.

Doctors fought for several hours to save the life of Prime Minister Robert Fico after he was shot in the abdomen while greeting supporters at an event outside a cultural center in the town of Handlova, the defense minister told reporters. , Robert Kalina.

“I assume he will survive in the end,” Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba told the BBC, adding: “At the moment he is not in a life-threatening situation.”

A suspect was quickly arrested following Wednesday’s attack and an initial investigation found “a clear political motivation,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said.

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Rescuers rushed Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to hospital after the shocking assassination attempt he suffered on Wednesday. (Jan Kroslak/TASR via AP)

The attempted murder of the 59-year-old just weeks before the election shocked the small country and reverberated across Europe.

“A physical attack on the prime minister is, above all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy,” said outgoing president Zuzana Caputova, Fico’s political rival. “Any violence is unacceptable. The hateful rhetoric we have been witnessing in society leads to hateful actions. Please let’s stop it.”

Roberto Fico

Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was wounded in a shooting during an event Wednesday afternoon, according to his Facebook profile. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

President-elect Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Fico, called the shooting “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy. If we express other political opinions with guns in the squares, and not in the polling stations, we are endangering everything we have built together during 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.”

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also denounced the violence.

“Everything must be done to ensure that violence does not become the norm in any country, form or sphere,” he said.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala intervened with other world leaders and wished the prime minister a speedy recovery, saying “we cannot tolerate violence, there is no place for it in society.”

The Czech Republic and Slovakia formed Czechoslovakia until 1992.

A suspect being arrested

The man accused of shooting Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico during an event in the town of Handlova, Slovakia, on Wednesday was arrested by police shortly after the incident. (Radovan Stoklasa/TASR via AP)

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Fico, a divisive figure in Slovakia, returned to power last year after campaigning on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform.

At the time, European Union members expressed concern that it could lead Slovakia – a NATO nation of 5.4 million – to abandon its pro-Western course.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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