A suspect was in custody and the country’s interior minister said that an initial investigation found « a clear political motivation » behind the attack on Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was in serious but stable condition Thursday, a hospital official said, after the populist leader was shot multiple times in an assassination attempt that shook the small country and reverberated across the continent weeks before European elections.
A suspect was in custody, and Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said Wednesday that an initial investigation found « a clear political motivation » behind the attack on Fico while he was attending a government meeting in a former coal mining town.
The minister did not specify what the motivation was. Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond, and his return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American message led to even greater worries among fellow European Union members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course.
