(Bratislava) Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is in a “stable” but still “serious” condition, his deputy said on Wednesday, a week after Mr. Fico was wounded by four bullets and hospitalized.
The shooting occurred as the prime minister greeted supporters after a remote government meeting in Handlova, a town in central Slovakia.
He immediately underwent a five-hour operation last Wednesday and another, shorter one, on Friday, both at a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica where he is still being treated.
“His condition was stable in the morning,” Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak told reporters after the Slovak Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
“His condition is serious, the injuries are complicated. Transportation is definitely out of the question at the moment,” said Mr. Kalinak, Mr. Fico’s closest political ally.
He added that the Banska Bystrica hospital would release further information on the prime minister’s health later on Wednesday.
The attacker, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, was remanded in custody by a court on Saturday for attempted premeditated murder.
On Sunday, Slovakia’s interior minister said police were investigating the possibility that the shooter did not act alone.
Citing intelligence reports, Matus Sutaj Estok said someone deleted the shooter’s Facebook history and communications while he was detained.
But Slovakia’s media regulatory agency said Meta, the owner of Facebook, had informed authorities that it had deleted the suspect’s account.
On Wednesday, Mr Kalinak, who is also Slovakia’s defense minister, said it was necessary to “distinguish” between the findings of the Slovak investigation and the Meta report.
“We talked about the manipulation of the account shortly after the arrest, that is to say between the attack and the intervention of the company Meta,” he declared.
The assassination attempt highlighted serious political divisions in the country where Mr. Fico, 59, took office in October after his populist centrist party, Smer, won legislative elections.
Mr. Fico is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on peace proposals between Russia and Ukraine, a neighboring state of Slovakia, and on stopping military aid to Kyiv, which which his government subsequently implemented.