The Albany Gazette - Slovak PM shooting suspect arrives in court

The man, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, shot Fico after a government meeting on Wednesday.

An AFP video journalist at the penal court in Pezinok northeast of the capital Bratislava said several police cars had driven into the court's premises.

News channel TA3 also reported the suspect was brought to the court.

Cintula fired five shots at Fico and hit him four times -- including in the abdomen -- as the prime minister was walking towards his supporters after a government meeting in the central Slovak mining town of Handlova on Wednesday.

Fico was taken to hospital by helicopter and underwent five hours of surgery.

"If the shot went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister's liver," Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told TA3.

Fico, in office since his centrist populist Smer party won a general election last autumn, had another two-hour surgery on Friday.

"The patient is conscious now, his condition is stable, but he is still in intensive care. His condition is really serious," said Miriam Lapunikova, director of the Roosevelt Hospital in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica.

The Pezinok court is considering a prosecutor's request made Friday that Cintula be placed in pre-trial detention after he had been charged with a premeditated murder attempt.

- 'All these lies' -

Fico is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on proposals for peace between Russia and Slovakia's neighbour Ukraine, and for halting military aid to Ukraine, which his government later did.

Outgoing pro-Western President Zuzana Caputova and her successor Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who will assume office in June, have called on fellow Slovaks to refrain from "confrontation" after the shooting.

They called a meeting of all parliamentary party leaders for Tuesday in a bid to show unity in the aftermath of the attack.

But some politicians have already pointed fingers at their opponents for allegedly causing the attack.

Robert Kalinak, a deputy prime minister and Fico's closest ally, slammed opposition politicians and "selected media" on Friday for labelling Fico as a criminal, dictator or Russian President Vladimir Putin's servant before the attack.

"All these lies are the main reason why Robert Fico is fighting for his life today," he said in an emotional message on Smer's website.

(Y.Harris--TAG)