‘Lone wolf’ charged with shooting Slovak prime minister Robert Fico

The Slovak interior minister said on Thursday that a “lone wolf” has been charged in the shooting that seriously wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The attempted assassination has shocked the small central European nation, with leaders blaming the attack in part on extreme political polarisation that has divided the country.

President-elect Peter Pellegrini visited Mr Fico in hospital and spoke to him but said that his condition “remains very serious”.

The populist leader, 59, was hit multiple times in the attempt on his life on Wednesday.

At a news conference on Thursday following a meeting of Slovakia’s Security Council, government ministers gave more details about the man while still not naming him.

Interior minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that the man cited his dissatisfaction with several of Mr Fico’s policies as motivation for the attack. The minister said presidential elections in the spring prompted the assault and that the suspect had attended a recent anti-government protest.

“I can confirm to you that the reason it was a politically motivated, attempted premeditated murder is as the suspect himself said: the media information that he had at his disposal,” he said. “I think each of you can reflect on the way you presented it.”

The attempt on Mr Fico’s life came at a time of high division in Slovakia, as thousands of demonstrators have repeatedly rallied in the capital and around the country to protest his policies.

It also comes just ahead of June elections for the European Parliament.

Slovakia’s outgoing and next president, who are political rivals, appeared together in an appeal for Slovaks to overcome their increasingly tense political differences for the good of the country.

Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, an opponent of Mr Fico, said that the heads of the country’s political parties would meet in an effort to bring calm, saying the attack was a reflection of an increasingly polarised society.

“Let us step out of the vicious circle of hatred and mutual accusations,” Ms Caputova said at a news conference in the capital Bratislava. “What happened yesterday was an individual act. But the tense atmosphere of hatred was our collective work.”

Mr Pellegrini called on political parties to suspend or scale back their campaigns for European elections, which will be held from June 6-9, to prevent “stand-offs and mutual accusations between politicians”.

“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. And if not consensus, then please, at least civilised ways of discussing among each other,” Mr Pelligrini said.

Mr Fico’s government, elected last September, has caused controversy by halting arms deliveries to Ukraine, and has plans to amend the penal code to eliminate a special anti-corruption prosecutor and to take control of public media.

His critics worry that he will lead Slovakia — a nation of 5.4 million that belongs to Nato — down a more autocratic path.

Zuzana Eliasova, a resident of the capital Bratislava, said the attack on Mr Fico was a “shock” to the nation and an attack on democracy at a time when political tensions were already running high.

“I believe that a lot of people or even the whole society will look into their conscience, because the polarisation here has been huge among all different parts of society,” she said.

Doctors performed a five-hour operation on Mr Fico, who was initially reported to be in life-threatening condition, according to the director of the FD Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica, Miriam Lapunikova. He is being treated in an intensive care unit.

Five shots were fired outside a cultural centre in the town of Handlova, nearly 85 miles north east of the capital, government officials said.

Slovak police have provided no information on the identity of the gunman but unconfirmed media reports suggested he was a 71-year-old retiree who was known as an amateur poet, and may have previously worked as a security guard at a mall in the country’s south west.

Mr Fico returned to power in Slovakia last year, having previously served twice as prime minister. He and his Smer party have most often been described as left-populist, though he has also been compared to politicians on the right like the nationalist prime minister of neighbouring Hungary, Viktor Orban.