1 of 2 | Juraj Cintula (C) was escorted Monday by police for the main trial over last year’s assassination attempt of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico at the Specialized Criminal Court in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. Photo Provided by Jakub Gavlak/EPA
The would-be killer of Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was given 21 years in prison for attempting to kill the Slovak leader.
Juraj Cintula got sentenced Tuesday by a Slovak court on charges of terrorism for the attempted May 2024 assassination of Fico. He faced 25 years but received a lighter sentence due to age.
Cintula, 72, shot the prime minister five times with a pistol at close range during a political gathering in Handlova. Fico was reportedly hit in the stomach, the arm and the leg.
Fico did not attend Tuesday’s trial but was represented by an attorney.
Cintula, a known poet and activist who disagreed with Fico over Ukrainian policy among other issues, told police he only wanted to injure Fico so he could no longer serve as prime minister.
Fico, a controversial political figure in Slovakia for many years, returned to power on a pro-Russian and anti-U.S. platform and is widely viewed by European leaders as an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Slovakia supported Ukraine when Russia invaded it more than three years ago, but Fico halted Ukrainian arms shipments after regaining power.
Fico, now 61, survived bullet wounds after emergency surgery and later public forgave Cintula but blamed the central European nation’s political opposition for cultivating a negative political environment that led to the gun attack.
Prosecutors initially charged Cintula with attempted murder but later upgraded it to terrorism charges.
According to Cintula’s lawyer, the verdict will be appealed to Slovakia’s high court.
