Who is the alleged suspect in the shooting of Slovakian PM Robert Fico?

Juraj Cintula, 71, has been named in local media reports as the man accused of carrying out gun attack in Handlova

Police arrest a man after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured (AP)

As Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in hospital after being shot on Wednesday, a man has been charged with his attempted murder.

If found guilty, he would face 25 years to life in prison under Slovakian law.

The alleged suspect has been identified by local media as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, a government critic and poet who once founded a campaign group against violence.

Five bullets were fired at the 59-year-old prime minister Mr Fico as he greeted supporters following a government meeting in the small town of Handlova in central Slovakia.

Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok has said the assassination attempt was politically motivated and that the “perpetrator’s decision was born closely after the presidential election”.

He was referring to an ally of Mr Fico, Peter Pellegrini, who won a fiercely contested presidential election last month.

An undated video posted on Facebook has since surfaced showing the suspected attacker saying: “I do not agree with government policy.”

Mr Estok said that the detained suspect was “a lone wolf who had radicalised himself in the latest period after the presidential election” and attended anti-government protests.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is rushed to hospital from a helicopter by medics and his security detail in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia (AFP via Getty Images)

Mr Cintula is the author of three collections of poetry and a member of the Slovak Society of Writers.

A member of the Rainbow Literary Club in Levice told Reuters she knew the suspect, saying he had been one of its founding members and its chairman for a time.

The club later condemned the attack and said it had revoked the assailant’s membership “with immediate effect”.

Cintula also founded the campaign group Against Violence, which he had sought to get it officially registered in Slovakia.

The movement calls on people to stand against violence in all forms, from “martial law to domestic physical or psychological violence,” as well as violence on the international stage, in Europe, “in which militarisation, extremism, neo-Nazism, anarchy are growing”.

News outlet Aktuality.sk cited his son as saying that all he could say about his father’s views about Mr Fico was that he did not vote for him.

He lived in the town of Levice, due south of Handlova, where the attack occurred, and east of the capital Bratislava, according to local media.