The liberal activist and aspiring poet who shot Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was apparently moved by disagreement over funding for Ukraine.
Juraj Cintula planned the crime two days before carrying it out, according to the Pravda news portal. He set up two pistol magazines for the assassination attempt.
He has further stated that he did not want to kill Fico but merely ‘damage his health’ to prevent him from serving as prime minister and pursuing policies with which he fiercely disagreed, according to a pre-trial detention order issued by a Slovak judge.
ASSASSINATION PLOT? Robert Fico’s Shooter May Not Have Acted Alone: Slovakian Minister
Politico reported:
“Fico was critically injured in the attack, which took place following a Cabinet meeting in the former mining town of Handlová, about two hours’ drive from Bratislava. As Fico approached a crowd of onlookers, Cintula fired five bullets at his lower abdomen, striking him four times.
The prime minister was airlifted to hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica and underwent two surgeries. His condition is listed as serious but stable, and he is expected to recover. The Cabinet is now under temporary leadership by Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák, who is also deputy PM.”
Cintula claims that he felt ‘powerless and frustrated with the state of society’ under Fico’s leftist-populist government.
“The suspect said he ‘doesn’t agree with the policies of the current government, including the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor’, which handled top political and organized crime cases, and he ‘doesn’t agree with the persecution of culture and media workers’.
He said what he mainly wants is for ‘military assistance to be given to Ukraine’, and ‘regards the current government as a Judas toward the European Union’, so he ‘decided to act’.”
A court heard Cintula say ‘hostile and spiteful things’ about Fico, that ‘he was bothered by how [Fico] acts toward Russia and Hungary, that he has a good relationship with them’.”
“He said he fired into the right side of the prime minister’s abdomen as Fico was shaking hands at a distance of two meters: ‘Even a blind man would have hit [the target]’, the court document recorded him as saying.
The attacker added he knew Fico might die, but that he was prepared to take the risk because ‘he is socially sensitive and the things that are going on in society irritate him mightily’.”
Importantly, Cintula said he had ‘acted alone’ and not told anyone of his intentions. He faces a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted.
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