The 71-year-old man suspected of shooting Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, at point-blank range has been named in local media as Juraj Cintula, an amateur poet and former supermarket security guard said to have links with a pro-Russian paramilitary group, Slovenski Branski, also known as Slovak Conscripts.
As doctors fought for Fico’s life, a sketchy picture emerged of a grey-haired, bearded assailant, wearing a shirt and jeans, who approached Fico during a walkabout in Handlova, a town northeast of Bratislava. He allegedly leaned over and fired five times, hitting Fico three times, twice in the hand and once in the abdomen.
Matus Sutaj Estok, the interior minister, said authorities suspected that the attack was politically motivated.
Cintula was arrested immediately after the shooting.
