Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was hospitalized on Wednesday after he was shot five times in an assassination attempt that shocked the country.
Slovakian deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba said he
believed the prime minister would survive following surgery that “went well”
and was “not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”
“I was very shocked and tried to contact people to figure
out how serious his condition was,” Taraba said in an interview with BBC’s
Newshour program on Wednesday, recalling the moment he heard about Fico’s
shooting.
“Fortunately, as far as I know the operation went well and
I guess in the end he will survive,” he said.
Both the country’s Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák and
Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok called the shooting “politically
motivated,” with Šutaj Eštok noting that “the suspect made the decision to do
it shortly after the presidential election.”
The attack took place after an off-site government meeting
in the central Slovak town of Handlova. The suspected gunman was among a small
crowd of people waiting to greet the prime minister on the street outside the
cultural center, where the meeting took place, local media reported.
Footage from the scene shows the injured prime minister
being bundled into a vehicle by his staff, before it speeds away with him
inside. Fico was taken to a local hospital and then transferred by helicopter
to a major trauma center about 20 miles (30 kilometers) away in Banska
Bystrica. No one else was injured in the attack, officials said.
Taraba told the BBC that Fico “was heavily injured” and a
bullet “went through the stomach and the second one hit the joints,” he said.
Fico is the most powerful lawmaker in Slovakia. Unlike the
president, whose role has limited scope, the prime minister holds rank as the
decision-making head of government. CNN
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