Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico suffered life-threatening injuries when he was shot and wounded in an attempted assassination on Wednesday, the government office said.The incident shocked Slovakia, a small central European nation with little history of political violence. Slovakia’s partners in the European Union and NATO condemned the shooting.
A Reuters witness heard three or four shots as Fico exited a building to shake hands with a crowd of people who had been waiting to greet him.“An assassination on Prime Minister Robert Fico was carried out today at the government’s off-site meeting in Handlova,” the government office said in a statement.
Fico, who returned as prime minister last October for the fourth time, has drawn criticism in some quarters for taking a more pro-Russian stance in the Ukraine war and initiating reforms of criminal law and the media which have raised concerns over the rule of law and prompted street protests. Slovakia’s acting speaker of parliament Peter Ziga condemned the shooting as an attack on the principle of democracy.