Slovak doctors will meet on Monday to assess Prime Minister Robert Fico’s health and discuss the possibility of transporting him from Banska Bystrica to the capital Bratislava, local media reported on Friday.
Fico remains in a serious but stable condition and is able to speak a little, the country’s President-Elect Peter Pellegrini said on Thursday, a day after an assassination attempt that sent shock waves across Europe.
Local media reported that a medical council would convene on Monday to assess his condition and decide whether he could be transported from the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica to Bratislava. The aktuality.sk news website attributed this information to a hospital director.
The hospital in Banska Bystrica did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The shooting was the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader for more than 20 years, and has drawn international condemnation. Political analysts and lawmakers say it has exposed an increasingly febrile and polarised political climate both in Slovakia and across Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio on Friday that Fico was “between life and death”.
Orban said even if Fico recovers, he would be out of work for months at a critical time in the run-up to European Parliament elections due early next month.
“We are facing an election that will decide not just about members of European Parliament but along with the U.S. election can determine the course of war and peace in Europe,” Orban said.
Fico and Orban have both criticised western weapons supplies to Ukraine.
Earlier, a man wasbeen charged with the attempted murder of Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico, who is in a stable condition in hospital but is “not out of the woods yet” according to officials.
Mr Fico was left fighting for his life in hospital after he was shot several times in the stomach in what the government has decribed as an assassination attempt. Mr Fico, 59, was airlifted to hospital after five shots were fired by a gunman outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlova where the leader was meeting with supporters.
Mr Fico was still critical on Thursday after undergoing five hours of surgery with doctors working around the clock to save his life. But Slovakian president-elect Peter Pellegrini said he could speak a little.
”He is able to speak but only a few sentences and then he is really tired because he is on some medication,” Mr Pellegrini said. He added that if the bullets struck just a few millimetres either side, Mr Fico would have been killed.
Earlier, the deputy prime minister, Robert Kalinak, said it was too early to say whether Mr Fico would recover from the attack due to “the extent of the injuries caused by four gunshot wounds”.
Interior minister Matus Sutaj Estok, speaking at the same news conference, said the suspected shooter had acted alone and had previously taken part in anti-government protests.
“This is a lone wolf who had radicalised himself in the latest period after the presidential election [in April],” Mr Sutaj Estok said.
The suspect listed government policies on Ukraine and its plans to reform the country’s public broadcaster and dismantle the special prosecutor’s office that deals with high-level corruption as reasons for the attack, Mr Sutaj Estok said.
Police gave no details about their investigation at an afternoon news conference but said they had boosted security at Slovakia‘s parliament and also around media offices and schools.
Local media has named the alleged suspect as Juraj Cintula, 71, from the town of Levice. He is believed to be a former security guard and poet. The suspect has not been formally identified by authorities.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the FD Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica where Mr Fico is being treated, said two surgery teams had been needed to treat multiple gunshot wounds.
“At this point his condition is stabilised but is truly very serious. He will be in the intensive care unit,” she told reporters.
Appeal for calm
Legislators have appealed for unity in the wake of the shooting, saying it has exposed an increasingly polarised political climate both in Slovakia and across Europe in the run up to European parliamentary elections next month.
Slovakia’s opposition leader Michal Simecka called for an end to the “spiral of attacks and blame” He continued: “The assassination of the prime minister is an attack on democracy. Most of all, we now need to end the spiral of attacks and blame. We must all contribute to this in our own way, both as politicians and as citizens.”
Mr Pellegrini also called for calm and urged political parties to scale back their campaigns for the country’s upcoming European elections.
He said: “If there is anything that the people of Slovakia urgently need today, it is at least basic agreement and unity among the Slovak political representation.”
Via The Independent
