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A Slovak court has sentenced Juraj C., the 72-year-old man who shot Prime Minister Robert Fico in May 2024, to 21 years in prison after finding him guilty of committing a terrorist attack.
The Specialized Criminal Court in Banská Bystrica delivered the verdict on Tuesday, ruling that the shooting was politically motivated and aimed at destabilizing the government. The verdict is not final, as the defendant retained the right to appeal, though the prosecutor waived that option.
The convicted pensioner was charged with committing a terrorist attack against a protected person and faced a possible life sentence. While the court accepted that there was no doubt he carried out the attack, the legal classification of his crime was contested. Alternatives such as attempted premeditated murder or assault on a public official were considered, but the judges sided with the prosecution’s position that the act amounted to terrorism.
As reported by TASR, the court concluded that Juraj C. had not attacked Fico “as a citizen of the Slovak Republic” but explicitly as the prime minister, targeting him because of government policies he opposed. “He was against this government and incited people to overthrow it,” the presiding judge said during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
Although the maximum penalty for a terrorist attack is life imprisonment, the court applied exceptional mitigating circumstances, noting Juraj C.’s age, poor health, and previously good character, and set the sentence at 21 years, just above the 20-year legal minimum.
Juraj C. admitted during the trial that he had planned to harm Fico so the prime minister would no longer be able to perform his duties, but claimed he did not intend to kill him.
NEW: 🇸🇰 "I'm even more afraid now than I was before."
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 15, 2025
A year ago today, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was the subject of an assassination attempt by an opposition activist.
Here, he speaks candidly about the incident. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/X1ssj9oWGz
On May 15, 2024, during a government event in Handlová, he legally carried a firearm and fired five shots at Fico as the prime minister approached supporters. Fico suffered serious injuries and was airlifted to hospital where he underwent surgery in Banská Bystrica.
The trial, which began on July 8, 2025, stretched over eight hearings and featured extensive evidence, including witness testimony from Fico’s security detail, video footage of the shooting, audio recordings of conversations between Juraj C. and an undercover agent, and even the bloodstained clothes worn by the prime minister.
In her closing argument, prosecutor Habčáková described the attack as “an assault on the basic principles of democracy and the stability of the state.” She argued that Juraj C. sought to reverse government policy, force the cabinet’s resignation, and trigger early elections, and that he had attacked “the entire government of the Slovak Republic as a collective body headed by the prime minister.”
In his own closing remarks, the defendant delivered a poem and a lengthy account of his life before being reminded by the judge to focus on the case.
Prime Minister Fico, who spent more than six weeks recovering from his injuries, did not attend the trial but, through his lawyer, publicly forgave Juraj C. for the attack.
“It’s time for forgiveness. I have no hatred for the assassin, I don’t want to take revenge or seek compensation. I forgive him and leave him to sort out his thoughts,” Fico said in June last year.
“It is clear that he was only a messenger of evil political hatred from the failed and frustrated Slovak opposition,” the Slovak prime minister added.
Fico himself provided testimony during the trial, albeit through a recording played in the courtroom in July.
“I heard sounds that I did not identify as gunfire. At the same time, I felt a sharp blow to the abdomen. I absolutely did not register any person who resembled the accused,” he said.
The Slovak leader was once again the target of an assassination attempt in October last year, but that time the gunman, a radical supporter of Ukraine, was discovered in time beforehand.
“What’s worse is that these attempts appear even afterward. We had an incident at Dukla, which the public was not yet informed about,” Fico told Standard newspaper in an interview.
