Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is “stable” and “improving clinically”, the FD Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica said, according to the Guardian newspaper.

“He is improving clinically, communicating, and his inflammatory markers are gradually decreasing. The prime minister remains in our care,” the hospital said.

Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday that Fico was out of danger but still needed intensive care.

The Slovak prime minister underwent a five-hour operation on Wednesday and a shorter one on Friday, both at the hospital in central Slovakia.

Fico, 59, was shot several times on Wednesday as he left a government meeting in the town of Handlova. On Saturday, a court in Pezinok, a small city just outside the capital, Bratislava, ordered the suspected gunman to be held in custody.

The suspect has been charged with attempted premeditated murder and could face a sentence of between 25 years to life in prison. Prosecutors have asked police not to identify the suspect publicly or release other details of the case, but unconfirmed media reports have named him as a 71-year-old pensioner and amateur poet who worked as a security guard at a shopping centre in the southwest of the country.

Government officials have since given details that match that description. They said the suspect was not a member of any political group, although the attack itself was politically motivated.

World leaders have condemned the attack and offered support to Fico and Slovakia.

Fico, who has been prime minister since his centre-left Smer-SD party won parliamentary elections last autumn, is a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. His return to power last year on a pro-Russia, anti-US platform has led to concerns among fellow members of the European Union and Nato that he could take the country on a less pro-western course, particularly in relation to Ukraine.

The assassination attempt has deeply shocked Slovakia, a country of 5.4 million people that is a member of the European Union and Nato and has been deeply politically divided for years.

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