BRATISLAVA: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s condition was on Friday “still very serious” two days after an attempted assassination, his deputy and close ally said, as police raided the suspect’s home.
Fico was hospitalized after the shooting on Wednesday, which happened as the 59-year-old leader was speaking to members of the public after a meeting in the central town of Handlova.
“He was operated on again, he had an almost two-hour-long operation,” deputy prime minister Robert Kalinak told reporters outside the hospital in Banska Bystrica.
Fico had previously undergone a five-hour-long surgery, shortly after being airlifted from the scene of the attack on Wednesday.
“His state is still very serious. I think it would take a couple of days to see the course of the development of his state,” Kalinak added on Friday.
The Banska Bystrica hospital director said Fico remained “conscious” despite being in a “serious” condition.
Earlier on Friday, local media reported that Slovak police had searched the home of the man charged with the shooting.
Officers brought along the alleged gunman, who was wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet, to the apartment he shared with his wife in the western town of Levice, Markiza TV footage showed.
“Police stayed in the apartment for several hours... They took the computer and documents out of the apartment,” the private broadcaster said.
Police, who told AFP they would not comment on an ongoing investigation, have not named the suspect but media have identified him as 71-year-old writer Juraj Cintula.
He was charged on Thursday with attempted murder with premeditation in what the authorities have called a politically motivated attack.
“This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential election since he was dissatisfied with its outcome,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said.
The attack has stoked fears of further violence and instability in the politically polarized nation, just weeks before European Parliament elections.
Officials drew a link to the political situation in the country, with its political scene marred by disinformation and attacks on social media during recent election campaigns.
Slovak president-elect Peter Pellegrini, who won an election in April, on Wednesday urged the political parties to suspend or reduce campaigning before the EU vote.
The biggest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, and others announced that they had done so.
Fico, a four-time premier and political veteran, returned to office in October.
Since then, he has made a string of remarks that have soured ties between Slovakia and neighboring Ukraine after he questioned the country’s sovereignty.
After he was elected, Slovakia stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, invaded by Russia in 2022.

NEW DELHI: Indian veterans joined in condemning Israel’s killing of a former army officer and UN staffer Col. Waibhav Anil Kale, whose body was returned to India for burial on Friday.

Kale was on duty with the UN Department of Safety and Security when he was targeted in his UN-marked vehicle in southern Gaza on Monday.

A former peacekeeper, he was hit by what the UN said it had no doubt was Israeli tank fire.

The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv shared a photo on Friday morning showing UN officials paying their last respects to Kale, before his remains were flown to Delhi.

While the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying it was “deeply saddened by the death,” civil society has urged the government to hold Israel accountable. Former servicemen also joined the call.

“Israel must be held accountable. Killing a veteran officer engaged in the UN is a serious issue,” said Indian Army Maj. Gen. (retd.) Yashpal Mor.

A former UN staffer himself, Mor told Arab News that Kale had a “brilliant career” and was known in the army circles.

“When you work with the UN, you are in an international environment, but you have the ethos and ethics of the Indian army. It was very sad and very shocking. He actually died in the line of duty,” he said.

“Israelis have been doing this since the beginning. They are not worried about anyone. They are going berserk.”

Israel’s deadly siege and bombardment of Gaza has since October killed over 35,300 people, wounded 70,000, and left most of the enclave’s population starving and with no access to food, water, and medical supplies.

“Israelis will lose sympathy by doing this indiscriminate firing,” Col. Anil Bhat (retd.), former spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense, said. “In the Indian army, we are so attentive to civilian casualties that we lose more men by not doing indiscriminate firing … Indiscriminate killing is not good. Israelis will lose sympathy.”

The UN estimates that more than 190 of its staff members have also been killed in the ongoing onslaught. Kale was the first international UN employee to be killed.

New Delhi had always been sensitive to assaults on UN personnel given that it is one of the largest contributors of the organization’s peacekeepers.

But the government’s statement did not contain condemnation of Kale’s killing, unlike in July 2022, when two Indian peacekeepers were killed in an attack on a UN Organization Stabilization Mission base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At that time, India’s foreign minister said the perpetrators “must be held accountable and brought to justice” and convened a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the attack.

“India has good bilateral relations with Israel, but that shouldn’t prevent it from strongly condemning the latter,” said Air Marshal (retd.) Kapil Kak of the Indian Air Force.

“One is deeply pained and distressed at Israel’s barbaric force in Gaza, which has led to the death and maiming of thousands of children and monumental human suffering. This is in sharp contrast to past India-Pakistan wars. I took part in two of these, which were far more civilized in character and caused no collateral damage, despite the absence of precision-guided munition.”