Slovak PM Reportedly Stable After Shooting: Bullets On Stomach And Gambling

JAKARTA - Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is reportedly in a stable condition and is no longer in a life-threatening condition, after being shot several times in a murder attempt when he finished attending a government meeting in Handlova City on Wednesday.

A gunman shot PM Fico (59) five times before being paralyzed by PM Fico's bodyguard, while another bodyguard brought the ministerial candidate into his car.

Quoted from Reuters, a witness heard gunshots when PM Fico came out of the building to shake hands with a crowd of people who had been waiting to greet him. Officers then paralyzed a man to the ground.

PM Fico was then flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital, before being flown to another hospital in Banska Bystrica, east of Handlova.

Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba told the BBC's Newsour program he believed PM Fico's procedures at the hospital were going well.

"I think in the end he will be safe," said Taraba.

"He is not in a situation that threatens his life at this time," he continued.

Taraba said one bullet penetrated Fico's stomach and the second bullet hit the joints.

News outlet Aktuality.sk quoted unnamed sources as saying PM Fico had left the operation and was in stable condition.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Robert Kalinak told a news conference a few hours earlier that PM Fico suffered from "serious trauma" after several gunshot wounds.

"(Effort) this murder was politically motivated and the perpetrator's decision was taken after the presidential election," said Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok, referring to the April election won by Fico ally Peter Pellegrini.

Separately, Slovak news media reported that my brother was a former security guard at a shopping center, a writer for three pools of poetry and a member of the Slovak Writers Association.

Actuality.sk quoted his son as saying his father was the legal license holder of weapons.

"I don't really know what my father meant, what he was planning, what happened," the boy said.

PM Fico's shooting shocked Slovakia and came under fire from the international community. NATO and EU member Slovakia has a history of political violence.