The man accused of trying to shoot the Slovak prime minister was in preventive detention, while Robert Fico remains in serious but stable condition, authorities announced this Saturday.

The court in Pezinok, a small town on the outskirts of the capital, Bratislava, ruled like this in favor of the request made by prosecutors, who had requested the suspect’s preventive detention because they feared that he could escape or commit other crimes, according to a spokesperson cited by the Associated Press (AP) news agency. The suspect was charged with attempted premeditated murder and could face a sentencebetween 25 years and life imprisonmentadds the Spanish agency EFE.

Robert Fico, 59, was attacked while greeting supporters after a government meeting on Wednesday in the former mining town of Handlova. The suspect was restrained and detained.

Prosecutors have asked police not to publicly identify the suspect or release other details about the case, but unconfirmed media reports say they have. He was a 71-year-old retiree, known as an amateur poet.who worked as a security guard in a shopping center in the southwest of the country.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico shot dead

Government authorities have since provided details matching this description. They said the suspect did not belong to any political group, although the The attack itself was motivated by issues of a political nature.

During the interrogation of the accused, the Pezinok court was guarded by police officers wearing balaclavas (covering their faces) and armed with rifles.

The media was not allowed to enter the court and journalists were kept behind a door outside.

I am awake and stable

Fico underwent a new operation on Friday to remove dead tissue from his body, revealed Miriam Lapuníková, director of the university hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after being shot. He also had a CT scan (computed axial tomography) and was awake and stable in an intensive care unit of that hospital, medical sources said.

World leaders have already condemned the attack and offered support to Fico and Slovakia. The politician has long been a controversial figure in Slovakia and beyond. His return to power last year, on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform, led European Union and NATO members to worry that he would abandon the country’s pro-Western path, especially in relation to Ukraine.

Robert Fico underwent a new operation and remains in serious condition

At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Slovakia was one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, but Fico suspended arms supplies to Ukraine when he returned to power, his fourth time as prime minister.

Thousands of protesters have repeatedly gathered in the capital and across the country of 5.4 million people to protest his policies. Fico said last month on Facebook that he believed rising tensions in the country could lead to the assassination of politicians and blamed the media for fueling existing tensions.

Before Fico’s return to power last year, many of his political and business collaborators were the subject of police investigations, and many of them were charged. His plan to reform the criminal justice system would eliminate the special prosecutor’s office that deals with organized crime, corruption and extremism.