BRATISLAVA, Slovakia: The suspect in the shooting of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is a 71-year-old writer from the center of the European nation, the interior minister said on Wednesday after the media identified the man.
“I think I can confirm this, yes,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told reporters when asked about reports identifying a man detained at the scene of a shooting in the town of Handlova.
The gray-haired suspect was seen handcuffed on the ground just after Fico was shot several times after a government meeting in Handlova. Officials said late Wednesday that Fico, the populist prime minister, was fighting for his life.
The media reported that the suspect was the founder of the DUHA (Rainbow) Literary Club and was from the Levice town.
Reports that also named him said he has written three poetry collections and is a member of the official Slovak Writers’ Union.
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The Union said on Facebook that the man had been a member since 2015, adding that if his crime was confirmed, “this despicable person’s membership will be revoked immediately.”
The suspect’s son told Slovak news site aktuality.sk that “he has absolutely no idea what the father is thinking, what he is planning, why it happened”.
He said his father was a legally registered gun owner.
Asked if he felt any hatred towards Fico, the son said: “I’ll tell you this: he didn’t vote for him. That’s all I can say about that.”
Several political statements by the man can be found on social media.
“The world is full of violence and guns. People seem to be going crazy,” he said in a video posted online eight years ago.
In the video, he also spoke about concerns about immigration and “hate and extremism”, saying European governments “have no alternative to this chaos”.
He also said in the video that he founded the “Movement against Violence” in Levice.
He also said in the video that he had founded a “Movement Against Violence” in Levice.
