Two former prime ministers part ways during an eventful week

Slovakia was mentioned in international media after a school attack. The police are hard at work.

March 2018: Robert Fico resigns as the prime minister.March 2018: Robert Fico resigns as the prime minister. (Source: SITA)

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Slovakia experienced an unprecedented violent attack on a school, Peter Pellegrini left the Smer party and the police raided a governmental agency, hinting at a major information security breach that most likely did not happen.

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Vrútky attack shocks Slovakia

A deadly school shooting in Slovakia, an unprecedented event for the country, took place in the small northern-Slovak railway-junction town of Vrútky. A 22-year-old man, who was a former pupil of the local primary school, launched a knife attack in the school, killing the deputy headmaster and injuring another teacher and two fourth-graders. The police shot the attacker dead to stop him from hurting others.

The investigation of the incident is still underway. The information that has surfaced so far points to earlier incidents that the attacker was involved in - he had faced charges after he threatened a train conductor and dispatcher at the Vrútky station late last year. After he was charged, he cooperated with the police, Denník N reported. He was found guilty and sentenced to a suspended sentence of eight months behind bars.

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Information appeared on social networks after the incident that the attacker had been bullied while he studied at the school. The far-right ĽSNS MP Milan Mazurek was quick to spread fake information on Facebook that the attacker was Roma, which both the police and PM Igor Matovič rebuffed.

>>>Read more about how Slovak schools protect themselves from attackers.

Pellegrini leaves Fico

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