
Suspect in shooting of Slovakia's PM appears in court on terror charges
'Long live democracy, long live free culture,' Cintula shouted as he arrived at the Specialized Criminal Court.
The 72-year-old is accused of opening fire on Fico on May 15, 2024, as the prime minister greeted supporters following a government meeting in the town of Handlová, located 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital.
Cintula was immediately arrested and was ordered by a court to remain behind bars. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment.
Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica. He underwent a five-hour surgery, followed by another two-hour surgery two days later. He has since recovered.
Cintula originally was charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors later dropped that charge and said they were instead pursuing the more serious charge of engaging in a terror attack, based on evidence the investigators obtained, but they gave no further details.
Government officials initially said that they believed it was a politically motivated attack committed by a 'lone wolf,' but announced later that a third party might have been involved in 'acting for the benefit of the perpetrator.'
Fico previously said he 'had no reason to believe' that it was an attack by a lone deranged person and repeatedly blamed the liberal opposition and media for the assassination attempt.
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. He returned to power for the fourth time after his leftist Smer, or Direction, party won the 2023 parliamentary election after campaigning on a pro-Russia and anti-American message.
His critics have charged that Slovakia under Fico has abandoned its pro-Western course and is following the direction of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest Fico's pro-Russian stance and other policies.
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The last time Katie Amess saw her dad, the Conservative MP Sir David Amess, he was dropping her at Heathrow for her flight home to Los Angeles. Usually, she would cry when they said goodbye, but this time neither were sad – they were both excited. In six weeks, Katie would be back for her wedding. 'It was going to be in the House of Commons and my dad could not wait to walk me down the aisle,' she says. 'He'd been practising, taking my arm, walking me around. We joked about it – we were calling it the 'royal wedding'. At the airport, we hugged goodbye and he kissed me on both cheeks. I skipped off thinking the next time I saw him would be the best day of my life.' Instead, just four weeks later, her father was murdered at his surgery, stabbed 21 times by an Islamic State sympathiser. He was buried in the suit he was going to wear to the wedding. The music planned for walking Katie down the aisle – Pachelbel's Canon – was instead played as his coffin was carried into the church. The murder of David Amess in October 2021, while serving his constituency in a church hall in Leigh-on-Sea, sent shock waves across the country – and the details that have since emerged should have deepened the outrage and furthered the questions. Amess's killer, Ali Harbi Ali, was a once bright, motivated teenager planning to study medicine who had self-radicalised during Syria's civil war. The teachers at his Croydon school had noticed – one described it as a light going out and that his 'eyes were dead'. Ali's attendance fell, his grades plummeted and attempts to talk to him only raised more concerns, leading the school to contact Prevent, the government-led counter-terrorism strategy designed to identify and deradicalise extremists. One home visit was made, followed by one brief meeting between Ali and an 'intervention provider' in a McDonald's. Conversation was limited to two subjects: whether western music and student loans were unlawful in Islam. 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It was published last week and concluded: 'Though the information available on [Ali's] case is not complete and likely never will be,' the 'unhappy story' of his engagement with Prevent had been 'squeezed almost dry'. Katie doesn't agree. 'I'm not going to give up,' she says. 'All we want is for someone to say: 'We're sorry. This is what happened, these are the mistakes made and this is what we're doing to make sure it never happens again.' I shouldn't have to fight for answers.' Born in Basildon to an electrician father and a dressmaker mother, David Amess was a working-class, Catholic Conservative and had been an Essex MP for 38 years when he was murdered. He was approaching his 70th birthday – on that last airport trip with Katie, she had broached the subject of retirement. 'He didn't want to retire any time soon,' she says. 'He felt he had so much left to do.' Having an MP father was all Katie had ever known, but Amess was not an absent figure, away at Westminster. He was committed to his constituency with no ambitions for higher office. 'When I was young, I used to ask: 'Do you think you could be prime minister?' He'd say: 'Absolutely not!'' For Katie, the second of five children, all born within seven years, he was present and fun and always loomed large in her life. 'My dad was absolutely hilarious and completely inappropriate,' she says. 'He'd do the craziest things and sometimes they were a bit dangerous.' He would booby trap the house at Halloween. He would take all five children to water parks even though he couldn't swim and would have been unable to rescue any of them. At toll booths, on family road trips, all five children were instructed to blow raspberries while he paid the operator. 'He was obsessed with animals, so we had dogs, cats, chickens, bunny rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, a goat called Tinkerbell,' says Katie. 'He wanted a small pony at one point, but Mum vetoed that. He had fish and birds in his office even though no animals were allowed, but he didn't listen to rules. At Halloween, he'd go to Westminster in full goblin outfit. At Christmas, he'd put a tree on his balcony at Westminster, which was definitely not allowed, and his whole office was lit up with flashing lights.' From the age of four, Katie accompanied him to constituency events. 'My elder brother was out playing football and my mum had my three younger sisters to look after, so I was all dressed up and dragged to garden parties and village fetes.' Later, when she moved to London for drama school – she is now an actor – she stayed in her dad's London flat. 'I'm so glad I spent all that time with him so I could just be around him and soak up what he was about,' she says. 'I never knew I wouldn't be with him for another 30 years.' Amess was very well known in his Southend West and Leigh constituency. 'He spent so much time there,' says Katie. 'Everybody knew his name and face. I've received so many messages since he died saying: 'We didn't agree with him politically, but he helped my elderly parents'; 'He got support for my disabled child'; 'He visited my sick grandma in hospital.'' In some ways, his profile and accessibility made him vulnerable. He was the face of government and easy to locate. In fact, it later emerged that Ali had worked through a list of possible victims, including Michael Gove and Keir Starmer, both of who were deemed too complicated to find. Amess – targeted because he had voted in favour of airstrikes against Islamic State – was holding a surgery. (The pinned tweet on Amess's account gave the date, place and details of how to book.) 'I always worried about Dad's safety, but I thought if anything was going to happen, it would be a punch-up from a local yob,' says Katie. 'Never in your wildest dreams would you imagine that a terrorist would go through a list and then come and murder your dad. It's just so shocking. It's still unbelievable.' In the immediate aftermath, the family were too stunned to think about inquiries or even formulate questions. Katie remembers flying straight back to the UK, walking into the family home and seeing the runner beans Amess had picked from the garden before going to surgery. 'I washed up his breakfast plates – tea and toast – from the morning it happened as well as his dinner plates from the night before and could not believe it was the last time I'd ever be doing this,' she says. 'All those times I was annoyed that he'd left his plates for me to clean when I was in his London flat for drama school. Now, I just wanted to be able to clean them one more time.' When details about Ali's history with Prevent began surfacing, the family assumed an inquiry would be announced after his trial. (In April 2022, Ali was given a whole-life sentence.) 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Finally, in March, in another video call, Cooper admitted there wouldn't be an inquiry. 'My mum said: 'Look me in the eyes and tell me as his friend that you think you're doing the right thing.' Yvette Cooper could not answer.' In a formal letter, Cooper explained that it was 'hard to see' how an inquiry could go beyond what had already been established in the trial, the Prevent learning review and the coroner's report, as well as the forthcoming rapid review by Lord Anderson. 'When an elected official is killed in a church hall in broad daylight by somebody the government is monitoring, there should be an inquiry – it shouldn't even be a question,' says Amess. 'This isn't a witch-hunt, but there should be some accountability. The mistakes made cost me my father, my mother's husband, a grandfather, a brother, a son. 'I don't think we'll ever recover,' she continues. 'It's my 40th birthday this month and I know I'd have flown back to England like I did every summer and my dad would have thrown me a huge party. There'd have been 40 balloons and he'd have made my friends give me 40 bumps! I want to have children, but I think: 'What sort of mother would I be now when I'm in so much trauma and heartache?' I used to think he'd be such a funny grandpa. All that has been robbed from me.' For Katie, the lack of support from Westminster after her father's decades of service is deeply painful and nonsensical, too. 'I just cannot believe the way we've been treated by his friends and colleagues,' she says. 'It's in all their interests. They are meeting the public day in, day out, so why don't they want to investigate properly and establish what would make them safer? Dad's legacy needs to be that through what happened to him, he saves other people. Please, just show some human decency. Do the right thing.' Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The National
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