Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico reappeared on video about twenty days after the gun attack that left him dying and announced that he will return to work in a few weeks. The populist prime minister, in a message on Facebook, underlined that he had forgiven those who shot him but also attacked the opposition, accusing them of being the moral instigator of the attacker, a "messenger of evil".
On May 15, Fico was hit in the abdomen by five gunshots fired by 71-year-old Juraj Cintula in Handlova, in the center of the country, while he was greeting some supporters. The attacker, who said he fired because he "disagreed with government policies", is in pre-trial detention, according to rumors in the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital. In the 14-minute video in which he appears sitting on a chair and noticeably thinner than before the attack that put his life in danger for four days, the pro-Russian prime minister announced that - if everything goes as planned - he could return to I work between the end of this month and the beginning of July.
«On May 15, a Slovakian opposition activist tried to kill me because of my political ideas – says Fico in the video entitled "Forgive and I warn" – I don't feel hatred towards the shooter but I have no reason to believe that it's an attack by a lone madman." "The time has come to take the first step: forgiveness", says the nationalist prime minister, announcing that he will not ask for compensation or take legal action against Cintula: "In the end, it is clear that he was only a messenger of evil and political hatred which the failed and frustrated opposition has developed in Slovakia to unimaginable proportions", said Fico, accusing the anti-government media, parties opposed to him and NGOs of wanting to trivialize the attempt to kill him.
The opposition for their part accuses him of having - in just six months - abolished the office of the special prosecutor responsible for investigating high-profile corruption cases, attenuated the penalties imposed on "white collar workers" and having distanced himself from Western foreign policy on Ukraine and China. "The attack caused serious damage to my health, repeated operations, a lot of pain and suffering" , said Fico who was transported by helicopter to a hospital in the nearby city of Banska Bystrica and was then able to return home to continue treatment in domicile, only on May 31st.
(Unioneonline/D)
