A few hours after the attack on the Slovak Prime Minister, the local media painted a surprising portrait of the main suspect in this affair. Seventy-year-old, poet… Here is what we know.
In the photos of the arrest, we can see a man handcuffed, hands behind his back, lying on the ground, wearing blue jeans, a black leather belt and a light blue shirt, surrounded by numerous members of the security forces. order, behind a security cordon. This individual is accused of having shot point blank at the Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, on Wednesday May 15. Aged 59, the head of government was visiting Handlová, a town of nearly 18,000 inhabitants located in the center of the country, 2 hours by car northeast of the capital Bratislava, on the occasion of a Council delocalized ministers. The events occurred after this meeting and the press conference which followed it.
The main suspect was arrested almost immediately. According to local media reports, the man is aged 71. According to the Slovak daily Dennik N, the man’s name is Juraj C.. He is from Levice, in the south of the country. Former security guard in a shopping center, Juraj C. is a writer and amateur poet, marked on the left. He is a member of the literary club “Dúha” (rainbow, in Slovak), but also of the Association of Slovak Writers. He would also be the father of the Slovak political movement Hnutie proti nasiliu, which can be translated as Movement against violence. Always according to Dennik Neight years ago, when he was trying to collect signatures to create this party, he denounced the omnipresence of “militarization, extremism, neo-Nazism and anarchy” in Europe.
Contacted by the Slovak news site Actuality, his son said he had “absolutely no idea of his intentions”, adding: “All I can tell you is that he did not vote for Fico.” Nearby Dennik N, the director of the Tekovská library, who has known him for a long time, speaks of a “normal” man. “He was rebellious when he was young, but not aggressive,” she insists.
Quickly exfiltrated from the crowd, where he had come to shake a few hands before being shot, Robert Fico was hit by several bullets. The populist leader, also known to be a supporter of Moscow, recalls The world, was urgently hospitalized Wednesday afternoon. His vital prognosis is in jeopardy, reported his Facebook page at the end of the day, specifying that “the next few hours [seraient] decisive”.