Slovakian Prime Minister In Life-Threatening Condition After Being Shot

PRAGUE (AP) — Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting after a political event Wednesday afternoon, according to his Facebook profile.

The populist, pro-Russian leader, 59, was hit in the stomach after four shots were fired outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlova, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of the capital where the leader was meeting with supporters, according to reports on TA3, a Slovak TV station. A suspect has been detained, the country’s president said in a televised statement.

A message posted to Fico’s Facebook account said that the leader “has been shot multiple times and is currently in life-threatening condition.”

It said he was being transported by helicopter to the Banská Bystrica, 29 kilometers (63 miles) away from Handlova because it would take too long to get to Bratislava due to the necessity of an acute procedure.

“The next few hours will decide,” it said.

Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a political rival of Fico, said in a televised statement: “A physical attack on the Prime Minister is, first of all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy. Any violence is unacceptable. The hateful rhetoric we’ve been witnessing in society leads to hateful actions. Please, let’s stop it.”

President-elect Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Fico, called the assassination “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy. If we express other political opinions with pistols in squares, and not in polling stations, we are jeopardizing everything that we have built together over 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.”

There were reactions of shock from across Europe, and some were calling it an attempted assassination of the leader