Man Who Shot Slovakia PM Says Sentence Is Unjust

A court in Slovakia on Tuesday convicted a man of a terror attack and sentenced him to 21 years in prison over last year's attempted assassination of the country's populist Prime Minister Robert Fico. Juraj Cintula opened fire on Fico on May 15, 2024, as the prime minister greeted supporters following a government meeting in the town of Handlová, around 85 miles northeast of the capital, Bratislava. Cintula, 72, was arrested immediately after the attack and remanded in custody. When questioned by investigators, he rejected the accusation of being a "terrorist." The shooting and the trial have shaken this small, European Union and NATO-member country where Fico has long been a divisive figure, criticized for straying from Slovakia's pro-Western path and aligning it closer to Russia.

Fico was shot in the abdomen and was taken from Handlová to a hospital in the nearby city of Banská Bystrica. He underwent a five-hour surgery, followed by another two-hour operation two days later. He has since recovered. Cintula has claimed his motive for the shooting was that he disagreed with government policies. He refused to testify before the Specialized Criminal Court in Banská Bystrica. but confirmed that what he had told investigators about his motive remains true, the AP reports. "The defendant did not attack a citizen, but specifically the prime minister," Igor Králik, the head of the three-judge panel, said in delivering the verdict. "He was against the government, he was inciting people to overthrow the government."

The verdict of the panel was unanimous. The court said that Cintula's age and the fact that he had no criminal record contributed to why he did not receive life imprisonment. "It is unjust," Cintula kept saying in Slovak as he was leaving the courtroom. In his testimony, read by a prosecutor at the trial, Cintula said he disagreed with Fico's policies, including the cancellation of a special prosecution office dealing with corruption, the end of military help for Ukraine and the government's approach to culture. "I decided to harm the health of the prime minister but I had no intention to kill anyone," he said in the testimony. He also said he was relieved when he learned the premier survived.