Slovak PM undergoes another surgery

BRATISLAVA: Slovak PM Robert Fico has undergone another operation two days after being shot multiple times and remains in serious condition, officials said Friday. Fico, 59, was attacked as he was greeting supporters in the former coal mining town of Handlova. A suspected assailant has been arrested.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the University F D Roosevelt hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after he was shot, said Fico underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit.
She described his condition as "very serious".
She said the surgery removed dead tissues that had remained inside Fico's body.
"I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development," Robert Kaliniak, the defence minister and deputy PM, told reporters at the hospital. Still, Kaliniak stressed that the govt continues to work. "The ministries are working on all their duties, nothing is frozen or halted, the country goes on," he told reporters.
Earlier Friday the man charged with attempting to assassinate Fico was escorted by police to his home. Local media reported that it was part of a search for evidence. Markiza, a Slovak TV station, showed footage of the suspect being taken to his home in the town of Levice, and reported that police had seized a computer and some documents. Police did not comment. The suspect's detention will be reviewed at a hearing Saturday at Slovakia's Specialized Criminal Court in Pezinok, outside the capital Bratislava.
Unconfirmed media reports suggested he was a 71-year-old retiree who was known as an amateur poet, and may have previously worked as a security guard at a mall in the country's southwest. ap