Slovakia: attack on Fico was not terrorist act
The assassination attempt on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in May 2024 was not a terrorist attack but an ordinary attempted murder, the country's Supreme Court has concluded, thus contradicting the public prosecutor. Fico himself had recently talked once again about dangerous links between the assassin, a pensioner, and the opposition in Bratislava.
Not terrorism from a legal perspective
Aktuality.sk takes stock:
“In the immediate aftermath of the attempted assassination, it was said that it was an attack on society as a whole, or on democracy. Yes, figuratively speaking that is still true. An attack on the prime minister is indeed an extremely serious crime, which is unjustifiable in a democratic society. ... If the perpetrator was motivated only by personal hatred for the prime minister (even if this hatred was politically motivated in part), it is not considered terrorism under criminal law. An attack on a politician is not automatically an attack on the state in a democratic society. Not even if that politician governs the entire country.”
Ego in play
Denník N suspects why Fico is so intent on not looking like the victim of an attacker acting on his own:
“The prime minister has a compulsion to use the assassination to elevate his status. But if the assassin were just an ordinary radicalised pensioner with no conspiratorial context, the attack would appear too banal in the eyes of the prime minister. ... However if the assassin were to have ties to the domestic opposition or to something more mysterious that the secret service is looking for, it would take on a completely different meaning. After all, a victim caught up in the entanglement of dark forces seems far more interesting than, metaphorically speaking, a fly trapped in the cobwebs in the corner of an attic.”