The man who critically injured Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Wednesday may not be a lone perpetrator after all. There is evidence of this, Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok told journalists in the capital Bratislava on Sunday. “We have put together a team of investigators who will also work with the version that it was not a lone wolf.”
One of the indications is that the complete content history of the perpetrator’s Facebook page was deleted two hours after his arrest. At that time he was in the hands of the police and did not have access to the site himself. The minister said his wife was also unable to access it at that moment. Šutaj Eštok sent a warning to “all keyboard heroes” who approved the assassination attempt on the 59-year-old head of government on the Internet or spread further hate messages and calls for violence. The police will take ruthless action against all such agitators, find them and ensure they are punished.
The Prime Minister is out of danger
Prime Minister Fico was shot and critically injured by a 71-year-old man in the small town of Handlová last week. The attacker was arrested immediately after the crime. According to previous information from the police and government, the perpetrator shot him from close range out of hatred against Fico and his government policies. The head of government is now out of danger, Slovakian Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kaliňák and the deputy head of the clinic in Banská Bystrica, Milan Urbani, told the TASR news agency on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a round table of parliamentary parties planned for Tuesday by President Zuzana Čaputová and her elected successor Peter Pellegrini is looking increasingly unlikely to materialize. The round table was intended to reduce political tensions between government and opposition parties and help reduce the polarization of society. Pellegrini said in a video message to the population that apparently “the time is not yet ripe for it.” Some politicians have “shown that they are incapable of self-reflection even after such a tragedy.”
Pellegrini was referring to “unsavory attacks” by politicians on competitors – these had contributed significantly to tensions in society. The Social Democrat Pellegrini won the presidential election at the beginning of April. He will succeed the incumbent liberal incumbent Čaputová as head of state on June 15.