BANSKA BYSTRICA – Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s condition has stabilised but was still “very serious”, his deputy said yesterday, a day after Fico was shot multiple times in an attack the government in Bratislava decried as “political assault”. Surgeons spent hours in the operating theatre overnight, battling to save the 59-year-old leader after the attack, which has been condemned around the world.
“During the nigh,t doctors managed to stabilise the patient’s condition,” deputy prime minister Robert Kalinak told reporters gathered at the hospital where the Slovak premier was being treated. “Unfortunately, the condition is still very serious as the injuries are complicated,” added Kalinak, who is also the defence minister and Fico’s close ally hailing from his Smer-SD party.
The director of the Banska Bystrica hospital, where the Slovak premier was transported after sustaining gunshot wounds, said Fico underwent a “five-hour surgery carried out by two teams”. “He will stay at the intensive care unit,” Miriam Lapunikova said.
On Wednesday evening, another Fico deputy, Tomas Taraba, told the BBC he believed the leader’s hospital procedure had gone well. “I guess in the end he will survive,” Taraba said. “He’s not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”
Footage of events just after the shooting showed security agents grabbing a wounded Fico from the ground, and hustling him into a black car. Other police handcuffed a man on the pavement nearby. Police detained a suspect at the site of the attack in Handlova, president Zuzana Caputova told reporters. – Nampa/AFP