By Emmanuel Nduka
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s Prime Minister was on Wednesday shot multiple times and rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries after a cabinet meeting, officials said, in an attack condemned by EU chiefs.
Fico who is a populist leader accused of being Kremlin-friendly, has been prime minister since last year.
“Today, after the government meeting in Handlova, there was an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Robert Fico.
“He is currently being transported by helicopter to Banska Bystrica in a life-threatening condition, because it would take too long to get to Bratislava due to the necessity of an acute intervention,” the government said in a post on social media.
A post on his official Facebook page said Fico was shot multiple times.
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“We confirm the attack on the prime minister,” police spokesman Matej Neumann told AFP.
Handlova local hospital director Marta Eckhardtova said “Fico was brought into our hospital and he was treated at our vascular surgery clinic”.
Reacting, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova said she was “utterly shocked by today’s brutal and reckless attack on Slovakia’s prime minister… which I condemn in (the) strongest possible terms”.
“I wish him a lot of strength in this critical moment and early recovery,” she said on X, formerly Twitter.
