BRATISLAVA: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in a serious condition and it is too soon to say whether he will recover, a deputy prime minister said on Thursday, a day after an assassination attempt that has sent shock waves across Europe.
The shooting was the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader for more than 20 years, and has drawn international condemnation. Political analysts and lawmakers say it has exposed an increasingly febrile and polarized political climate both in Slovakia and across Europe.
“Unfortunately, I cannot say yet that we are winning (the battle to save Fico) or that the prognosis is positive because the extent of the injuries caused by four gunshot wounds is so extensive that the body’s response will still be very difficult,” Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said.
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok, speaking at the same news conference, said the shooter — whom police have charged with attempted murder — had acted alone and had previously taken part in anti-government protests.
“This is a lone wolf who had radicalized himself in the latest period after the presidential election (in April),” Sutaj Estok said.
The suspect listed government policies on Ukraine and its plans to reform the country’s public broadcaster and dismantle the special prosecutor’s office as reasons for the attack, the interior minister added.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica where Fico is being treated, said the 59-year-old prime minister had undergone five hours of surgery with two teams to treat multiple gunshot wounds.
“At this point his condition is stabilized but is truly very serious, he will be in the intensive care unit,” she told reporters.
Slovak President Zuzana Caputova called for a calming of political tensions. Fico ally and President-elect Peter Pellegrini urged parties to suspend or tone down their campaigning for next month’s European Parliament elections.
“If there is anything the people of Slovakia urgently need today, it is at least a basic consensus and unity among Slovaks’ political representatives,” said Pellegrini, who won an April election for the mainly ceremonial post of president.

VETERAN LEADER
Fico has dominated Slovak politics for much of the past two decades, winning re-election last October for a fourth stint as premier.
He has fused left-leaning economic views with nationalism, tapping into widespread discontent over living standards, but has also proved a divisive figure. His critics say new reforms threaten the rule of law and media freedoms in Slovakia, a member state of the European Union and NATO.
Fico’s calls for ending sanctions on Russia and halting arms supplies to Ukraine have endeared him to Moscow, and President Vladimir Putin and other Russian politicians have been prominent among those condemning Wednesday’s assassination attempt.
Fico was shot while greeting supporters in the street after chairing a government meeting in the central town of Handlova.
Slovak news media reported that the 71-year-old gunman was a former security guard at a shopping mall, the author of three collections of poetry and a member of the Slovak Society of Writers. News outlet Aktuality.sk cited the suspect’s son as saying his father was the legal holder of a gun license.
There has been no official confirmation of the gunman’s identity and background.
The incident raised questions over Fico’s security arrangements, as the attacker managed to fire five shots at point blank range despite the prime minister being accompanied by several bodyguards.
In an undated video posted on Facebook, the alleged attacker was seen saying: “I do not agree with government policy” and criticizing government plans to revamp the public broadcaster.
Reuters verified the person in the video matched images of the man arrested after Fico’s shooting.
Fico and his government coalition allies have criticized sections of the media and the opposition, saying they had inflamed tensions in the central European state.
Slovakia’s biggest opposition party, the liberal, pro-Western Progressive Slovakia, was quick to condemn the shooting and called off a protest rally planned for Wednesday evening. It has also urged all politicians to avoid stoking tensions.

NEW DELHI: The killing of an Indian army veteran serving as a UN staffer in Gaza has stirred outrage in India and prompted calls for the government to hold Israel accountable.

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

A former peacekeeper, he was hit on the way to the European Hospital in Rafah by what the UN said it had no doubt was Israeli tank fire.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement on Wednesday in response, saying it was “deeply saddened by the death” and that it was “in touch with relevant authorities” regarding an investigation into the incident.

The statement did not contain condemnation, 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.

Talmiz Ahmad, former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News on Thursday that the government’s response was “grossly inadequate” given it was a “calculated killing” of an Indian army officer and UN staffer.

“The Indian government can hold Israel accountable. India is a sponsor of a resolution related to the protection of the UN personnel,” he said.

“This particular killing of a UN officer is a targeted killing because it was very obvious to Israelis that this was a UN vehicle, and it was on an official UN mission. A tank deliberately targeted this vehicle.”

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

The reaction to Kale’s killing was insufficient, according to Kavita Krishnan, a women’s rights activist.

“If a person is a UN employee, he is entitled to protection,” she said.

“The Indian government should specifically hold Israel accountable for this killing. They cannot treat it just as a casualty of war or collateral damage.”

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

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.

“It’s condemnable that India does not name the fact of assassination. It’s not death. He did not die of illness. He was killed by Israel,” said Apoorvanand Jha, a public intellectual and professor at the University of Delhi.

“Israel kills people who are involved in the health services … kills journalists, aid workers and kills workers involved in the peacekeeping forces. So, it does it knowingly. It is not a collateral damage. Israel does it knowingly — this is what has been recorded many times. Israel needs to be held accountable for all the individual crimes of assassinations and the collective crimes, mass deaths.”

The killing of UN personnel goes against international humanitarian law.

“New Delhi should tell Tel Aviv that it should respect international law,” said Anwar Sadat, senior assistant professor at the Indian Society of International Law.

“The Indian government should issue a diplomatic demarche to the Israeli government.”

The government’s reaction was also seen as not boding well for the safety of Indian workers whom New Delhi has agreed to send to Israel.

Since the beginning of its invasion of Gaza, Israel has revoked work permits for tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers and sought to facilitate their replacement with manpower from South Asia.

In November, the Indian government signed a three-year agreement with Tel Aviv on the “temporary employment” of workers in the construction and caregiving sector.

“If this is the statement that the Indian government can bring for an official who works with the UN, imagine what if it happens with any of the workers. No one is going to speak,” said N. Sai Balaji, assistant professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“This seriously compromises India’s super-power ambitions; it seriously compromises India’s own foreign policy.”