Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, is out of immediate danger but remains in intensive care four days after he was shot by a gunman, the country’s deputy prime minister has said.
“He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious and he requires intensive care,” Robert Kaliňák, Fico’s closest political ally, told reporters.
“We can consider his condition stable with a positive prognosis,” Kaliňák said outside the hospital in the central city of Banská Bystrica, where Fico is being treated. He added: “We all feel a bit more relaxed now.”
Kaliňák said Fico would stay in the Banska Bystrica hospital for the time being, adding that his condition was still too serious to allow him to be transferred to a hospital in the capital, Bratislava.
Fico, 59, was shot on Wednesday while walking to greet supporters after a government meeting in the central mining town of Handlová.
Kaliňák said earlier that Fico had suffered four gunshot wounds, two light, one moderate and one serious.
Slovakia’s interior minister, Matúš Šutaj-Eštok, said that if one of the shots “went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister’s liver”. The minister also said on Sunday that officials were investigating the possibility the suspect may not have been a “lone wolf” as previously believed.
Fico underwent a five-hour surgery on Wednesday and a second operation on Friday.
The suspected gunman, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old former security guard and amateur poet Juraj Cintula, has been charged with attempted premeditated murder and was put in pre-trial detention by a special penal court on Saturday.
Slovakia’s specialised criminal court ordered the detention of the suspect after prosecutors said they feared he could flee or carry out further crimes, a court spokesperson said.
The suspect can appeal against the order to the supreme court.
The courthouse in Pezinok, a small town outside Bratislava, was guarded by officers wearing balaclavas and carrying rifles. News media were not allowed in and reporters were kept behind a gate outside.
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Wednesday’s shooting was the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader for more than 20 years, and has drawn international condemnation. Political analysts and lawmakers say it has exposed an increasingly febrile and polarised political climate both in Slovakia and across Europe.
Fico, a veteran populist politician, has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. His return to power last year on a pro-Russia, anti-US platform led to concerns among fellow EU and Nato members that he would abandon his country’s pro-western course, particularly on Ukraine.
Journalists in Slovakia have expressed alarm over a recent government decision that would replace the country’s public broadcaster and, they say, open it up to political influence.
Meanwhile, Fico’s move to close down a special prosecutor’s office focused on high-level corruption has raised the possibility that the EU could freeze some funding allocated to Slovakia.
Legislation that would label civil society groups that receive more than €5,000 (£4,300) a year in international funding as “organisations with foreign support” has also triggered worries in the EU and among NGOs.
At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Slovakia was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, but Fico halted arms deliveries to Ukraine when he returned to power, his fourth time serving as prime minister.
Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report