What we know so far about Slovak PM Robert Fico's attacker
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was in a «very serious» but stable condition in an intensive care unit on Thursday, a hospital official said, a day after being shot five times at close range in an assassination attempt.
Slovak police have charged Fico's suspected attacker with attempted murder, tvnoviny.sk reported on Thursday.
While much remains unclear about the attack, below are some details about the suspect.
* Slovak media have said the suspected assailant, who was apprehended at the scene, is a 71-year-old man. The gunman fired five bullets at the 59-year-old prime minister as he greeted supporters following a government meeting in the small town of Handlova in central Slovakia.
* The motive for the attack remains unclear, though Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said the assassination attempt was politically motivated and that the «perpetrator's decision was born closely after the presidential election».
An ally of Fico, Peter Pellegrini, won a fiercely contested presidential election last month.
* The suspect is a former security guard at a shopping mall, the author of three collections of poetry and a member of the Slovak Society of Writers, Slovak media have reported.
* A member of the Rainbow Literary Club in Levice told Reuters she knew the suspect, saying he had been one of its founding members and its chairman for a time. In a statement, the club condemned the attack and said that as a strictly apolitical group it had revoked the
