Who is the alleged attacker of Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico?

(CNN Spanish) — More than 24 hours after the attack, Slovak authorities confirmed to CNN the identity of the suspect in the attempted assassination of the country’s Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Feco was shot multiple times after a government meeting on Wednesday, initially threatening his life. After being in surgery for more than five hours, the President was out of danger of death.

According to local media, the alleged attacker was among a small crowd of people waiting to welcome the prime minister on the street in front of the cultural center where the meeting was held.

Below, we tell you what we know about the suspect.

Name, age and city of origin

This image from video obtained by AFPTV shows security personnel detaining a suspected attacker after Slovakia’s prime minister was shot multiple times in Handlova on May 15, 2024. (Credit: RTVS/AFP via Getty Images)

The Slovak prosecutor’s office confirmed the alleged attacker’s identity to CNN after questioning him: He is Juraj C, 71, from the town of Levice in south-western Slovakia.

“I can confirm that this is the same person who has been charged with attempted murder,” Zuzana Drobova, a spokeswoman for the country’s prosecutor’s office, told CNN on Thursday.

political motivations

Slovak authorities said the alleged attacker shot Fico five times.

Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia.

Slovakia’s Defense Minister Robert Kalinac and the country’s Interior Minister Mateusz Sutaj Estok said the attack was “politically motivated”.

Sutaj Estok commented that “the suspect decided to do this immediately after the presidential election.”

“The reasons for this were the decision to abolish the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the decision to stop military aid to Ukraine, the reform of the public broadcasting service and the dismissal of the head of the Judicial Council,” he said.

Sutaj Estok also said that the suspect is not a member of any extremist group, calling him a “lone wolf who decided to take action after the presidential election” and that he had participated in anti-government protests in the past.

This Saturday, Slovakia’s Special Criminal Court ruled that the man remains in custody, according to a court spokesman. “The reason for the arrest is the fear of possible flight, as well as the continuation of criminal activity,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“The trial judge did not accept the defendant’s written promise and rejected the probation and mediation officer’s motion for supervision,” the statement said.

The hearing was closed to the media and public and took place in Pezinok, a town near the capital Bratislava.

According to the statement, the outcome of the court’s decision is not “fully binding”, giving the accused the opportunity to “appeal against the decision to the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic”.

With reporting by CNN’s Ivana Kotasova, Sugam Pokharel, Zahid Mahmood, Jesse Yeung, Duarte Mendonca.

“There is no doubt that it was politically motivated. The inability to accept people’s choices that some people may not like … leads to this,” Kalinak said.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico poses for a photo with his Polish, Hungarian and Czech counterparts ahead of the Visegrad Group meeting at the government headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic, on February 27, 2024. (Credit: Michael Cizek/AFP via Getty Images)

The suspect said he disagrees with Fico’s government

Schutaj-Estok claimed that the suspect said his actions were motivated by his disagreements with the government on a number of issues.

“The reasons for this were the decision to abolish the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the decision to stop military aid to Ukraine, the reform of the public broadcasting service, and the dismissal of the head of the Judicial Council,” Schutaj-Estok said.

Slovakia says alleged attacker is not member of extremist group, calls him ‘lone wolf’

The interior minister said the suspect was not a member of any extremist group, describing him as “a lone wolf who decided to take action after the presidential election” and who had joined anti-government protests in the past.

The reforms proposed and implemented by the Fico government have greatly divided Slovakia and sparked weeks of massive but entirely peaceful protests.

The alleged attacker has been formally charged

The suspect in the shooting death of Slovakia’s prime minister on Wednesday has been charged with attempted murder, according to the country’s interior minister.

“I want to confirm that the police are working with only one principle of investigation and that the suspect was charged with attempted murder,” Schutaj-Estok said at a news conference on Thursday.

With reporting from CNN’s Ivana Kotasova, Sugam Pokharel, Zahid Mahmood, Jesse Yeung.