A man charged with attempted murder following the shooting of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been named as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula.

The pensioner, from the town of Levice in western Slovakia, is said to be a writer and poet, according to local media reports.

In one of his poems he describes how he grew up to be someone who strikes back, they say.

Eight years ago, however, he initiated the creation of a movement called Against Violence, and published a statement about it online.

Cintula previously worked as a security guard, during which time he was reportedly badly beaten by a man in a shop.

Meanwhile, one of his neighbours said he was “shocked” about the shooting of the prime minister.

‘Fantastic man’

“We had no problems with them. He is a fantastic man. I can’t explain it,” the neighbour said.

“I knew him and his wife as well. They were great people – pensioners. His wife was a university teacher – they used to go for a walk – great family.”

Asked whether it was clear that Cintula had a gun, the neighbour added: “He didn’t tell me. Police should check old people [and carry out psychological tests].”

Cintula founded a literary club in Levice and is the author of several poetry collections, local media reported.

He has also written a novel called The Message Of Sacrifice and is said to be a member of the Society of Slovak Writers.

Mr Fico – who is fighting for his life in hospital after Wednesday’s assassination attempt – was shot several times in the town of Handlova, around 85 miles northeast of the capital Bratislava, where he was meeting supporters.

Slovakia‘s interior minister, Matus Sutaj Estok, told reporters that Cintula was a “lone wolf”.

The suspect “acted alone”, Mr Estok said.

Speaking previously, he said the attempt on Mr Fico’s life was “politically motivated”.

On Wednesday, he said an initial investigation found the suspect had a “clear political motivation” for carrying out the shooting, adding the “perpetrator’s decision was born closely after the presidential election”.

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

President-elect Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Mr Fico, won a fiercely contested presidential election last month.

The alleged gunman fired five bullets at the 59-year-old prime minister as he greeted supporters following a government meeting in a former coal mining town in central Slovakia.

What have those who knew the suspect said?

News outlet Aktuality.sk cited the suspect’s son as saying his father was the legal holder of a gun licence.

“I have absolutely no idea what my father intended, what he planned, what happened,” it quoted the son as saying.

He said all he could say about his father’s views about the prime minister was that he did not vote for him.

He also said his father was not a psychiatric patient.

Read more:
Who is Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico?

A member of the Rainbow Literary Club in Levice told Reuters she knew the suspect.

She said he was one of the club’s founding members and had been its chairman for a time.

In a statement, the club condemned the attack and said that as a strictly apolitical group it had revoked the suspected attacker’s membership with “immediate effect”.

South Africa has told a UN court the situation in Gaza is at a “new and horrific stage” – as it tries to convince it to order a ceasefire and stop Israel’s operation in Rafah.

It was the third time the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has held hearings on Gaza since December, when South Africa first accused Israel of genocide.

“Seven months ago South Africa could not have imagined that Gaza would be largely wiped off the map,” the country’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, told judges.

Israel denies allegations of genocide and says it takes great care to avoid civilian casualties as it seeks to destroy Hamas following its devastating October attack.

However, South Africa believes Israel’s military operation has far exceeded acceptable self-defence.

“Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game. This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza,” lawyer Vaughan Lowe told the 15-judge panel at The Hague.

South Africa called Israel’s offensive in the southern city a “brutal military attack on the sole remaining refuge for the people of Gaza”, and said the court’s previous orders had made no difference.

Ambassador Madonsela urged judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.

More than a million people are estimated to have originally fled to Rafah from the destruction in northern parts of Gaza.

But as Israeli attacks in Rafah intensify, about half have now left for other areas – including to bombed-out homes they previously abandoned.

In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to do all it could to guard against deaths, destruction and any acts of genocide but didn’t tell it to end the fighting.

Another order in March said the country should take steps to improve the humanitarian situation – with many Gazans also dealing with chronic food shortages.

Thursday’s court hearing came as the US said it had anchored a floating pier to receive much-needed aid at a Gaza Strip beach.

The United Nations welcomed the move but said land entry points were a faster way to get aid in.

Israel’s operation in Rafah has virtually halted aid via the southern border and famine is a “clear and present danger”, said UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths.

“Stocks of food which were in place already in southern Gaza are running out. I think we’re talking about almost none left,” he told Reuters news agency.

“And so the humanitarian operation is stuck, it’s completely stuck. We can’t do what we want to do.”

Read more:
Satellite images show speed and scale of Rafah evacuation
Israel orders residents from more areas of Rafah to evacuate
Eyewitness: Israeli protesters block aid going into Gaza

Israel has blamed UN agencies for not distributing aid more efficiently and creating backlogs of supplies.

It says it had killed more than 100 Hamas fighters since it began a ground operation in Rafah last week – which officials say is intended to destroy the group’s presence there and rescue hostages.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshan said on Thursday they had also found tunnel shafts under and near the city’s border crossing with Egypt.

Many Western countries warned of devastating consequences if Israel expanded operations in Rafah, with President Biden saying the US wouldn’t provide some weapons if it went ahead.

So far, it doesn’t appear to be a full-scale invasion but the UN says hundreds of thousands of people have still fled.

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

The offensive could escalate, however, after the Israeli defence minister visited on Wednesday and warned “additional forces will enter” and “we are wearing Hamas down”.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than 35,000 people have died so far, while about 1,200 were murdered in the 7 October Hamas attack that triggered the war.

Several hundred Israelis were also taken hostage, with immense pressure at home for the government to agree a ceasefire deal to free them.

Jeremy Hunt will promise further tax cuts if the Tories win the next general election and will accuse the Labour Party of not being honest about how it will fund its spending pledges.

The chancellor will give a speech in London on Friday in which he will accuse his shadow, Rachel Reeves, of resorting to “playground politics” with her criticism of the high levels of taxation on UK households.

Mr Hunt will also reiterate his ambition to eradicate the national insurance tax – which the Tories have already slashed twice in a bid to move the polls – where they currently lag 20 points behind Labour.

Politics latest: Sunak ‘can still win election’ – as he’s hit with blunt question on Loose Women

Labour has attacked the policy as an unfunded £46bn pledge and likened it to the policies that saw Liz Truss resign from office after just 44 days as prime minister.

The chancellor was previously forced to make clear that his desire to abolish the “unfair” national insurance tax would not happen “any time soon”.

Read more from Sky News:
Water firm refuses to say when boil water notice will be lifted
Workers ‘poisoned’ at prison by ‘inmates working in staff canteen’

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

The chancellor described national insurance as a “tax on work” and said he believed it was “unfair that we tax work twice” when other forms of income are only taxed once.

The overall tax burden is expected to increase over the next five years to around 37% of gross domestic product – close to a post-Second World War high – but Mr Hunt will argue the furlough scheme brought in during the pandemic and the help the government gave households for heating both needed to be paid for.

“Labour like to criticise tax rises this parliament thinking people don’t know why they have gone up – the furlough scheme, the energy price guarantee and billions of pounds of cost-of-living support, policies Labour themselves supported,” he will say.

“Which is why it is playground politics to use those tax rises to distract debate from the biggest divide in British politics – which is what happens next.

“Conservatives recognise that whilst those tax rises may have been necessary, they should not be permanent. Labour do not.”

James Murray, Labour’s shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, said: “There is nothing Jeremy Hunt can say or do to hide that fact that working people are worse off after 14 years of economic failure under the Conservatives.”