Slovakia’s Interior Minister Matuss Sutaj Estok provided more details on the investigation of yesterday’s attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico. He said that the suspect was a fierce critic of Fico’s decision to stop arms shipments to Ukraine and that it was “a politically motivated act.” Fico also had described Ukraine as “among the most corrupt countries in the world,” and that the conflict really “began in 2014 when the Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder Russian citizens in Donbass.”
The suspect (identified from his image in a video of the shooting as Juraj Cintula) followed both domestic and international events closely and was involved in various public protests, including against the suspension of military aid to Ukraine and against the reorganization of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Estok said: “He stated these reasons why he disagrees with the government policy and why he decided to assassinate the Prime Minister.” The Interior Minister added that his actions were in part accelerated due to the consolidation of Fico’s political situation with the recent presidential election victory of his ally Peter Pellegrini.
