Slovak PM Shooting Suspect Arrives In Court

Muhammad Irfan Published May 18, 2024 | 03:40 PM

Pezinok, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th May, 2024) The suspect charged with the attempted murder of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico arrived Saturday in a court that will decide on pre-trial detention, an AFP video journalist said.

The man, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, shot Fico after a government meeting on Wednesday.

An AFP video journalist at the penal court in Pezinok northeast of the capital Bratislava said several police cars had driven into the court's premises.

news channel TA3 also reported the suspect was brought to the court.

Cintula fired five shots at Fico and hit him four times -- including in the abdomen -- as the prime minister was walking towards his supporters after a government meeting in the central Slovak mining town of Handlova on Wednesday.

Fico was taken to hospital by helicopter and underwent five hours of surgery.

"If the shot went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister's liver," Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told TA3.

Fico, in office since his centrist populist Smer party won a general election last autumn, had another two-hour surgery on Friday.

"The patient is conscious now, his condition is stable, but he is still in intensive care. His condition is really serious," said Miriam Lapunikova, director of the Roosevelt Hospital in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica.

The Pezinok court is considering a prosecutor's request made Friday that Cintula be placed in pre-trial detention after he had been charged with a premeditated murder attempt.