Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was once again the target of an assassination attempt earlier in October, but this time the gunman, a radical supporter of Ukraine, was discovered in time before shooting the Slovak leader.
The perpetrator was found with a loaded gun in the crowd at Dukla, with Fico only revealing the incident now.
Already, Fico was the victim of an assassination attempt in Handlova in May, in which he was shot multiple times and nearly lost his life. However, more recently, at a campaign event in Dukla, he revealed that a gunman was also there preparing to kill him.
“What’s worse is that these attempts appear even afterwards. We had an incident at Dukla, which the public was not yet informed about,” Fico told Standard newspaper in an interview. The suspect was caught before he could fire on the Slovak politician.
Fico explained how the man was caught and why he wanted Fico dead.
“We captured a very militant person who hates me because of my stance on Ukraine. He had a gun. Luckily, he didn’t get into the zone where we politicians were and he went to the zone where the people were. There, he passed through the frame to the metal detector, it was found that he had a fully loaded weapon,” said Fico.
Celebrations at Dukla took place on Oct. 6 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Carpathian-Dukla operation, which aimed to support the Slovak National Uprising. They were attended by several members of the government and members of parliament, including President Peter Pellegrini and Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Speaking about the previous assassination attempt, he said that “I was lucky,” saying that the shooter, Juraj Cintula, is a political activist of a “certain political party” who “participated in specific meetings where he was very active.”
According to Fico, his decision to shoot in Handlova was not impulsive. “Three times he came to public meetings where I was also present. He came there three times with a weapon,” he pointed out.
