The head of the Slovak government Robert Fico fights between life and death in a hospital bed; he is not the first to suffer a fire attack. Here is a list of world leaders injured or killed in recent years.
– Shinzo Abe. On July 8, 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed by a man who shot him during an election rally in Nara, in the west of the country. Hit by two bullets in the neck, he was declared dead a few hours later. His alleged killer, arrested immediately after the incident, accused him of alleged relations with the Unification Church, nicknamed the “Moon sect”, accused of exerting strong financial pressure on its followers in Japan. Heir to a political dynasty, Abe was the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan, first in 2006-2007, then from 2012 to 2020.
– Cristina Kirchner. On September 1, 2022, a man points a gun at the head of Argentine Vice President Cristina Kirchner, from her home in Buenos Aires. No shots were fired and the arrested man justified his action “with the situation in the country”. The pro-Kirchner camp instead supports the thesis of a broader orchestration and the existence of sponsors. The former president (2007-2015), Cristina Kirchner, sentenced at the end of 2022 to six years in prison and ineligibility for fraud and corruption, had thus mentioned the private financing of the attack “identified with the government” of her predecessor, the liberal Mauricio Macrì (2015-2019).
– Imran Khan. In November 2022, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was shot in the legs while the truck he was traveling in was crossing a crowded street in Wazirabad, in the East Asian country. The attacker, in a “confession” video released by the police, said he acted because he believed Imran Khan was against Islam.
– Jovenel Moise. Haitian President Jovenel Moise was shot dead in the middle of the night on July 7, 2021, in his private residence in Port-au-Prince, by an armed commando composed of 28 men posing as agents of the Agency United States drug enforcement agency. Three of the attackers were killed and around twenty people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, were arrested. An American investigation revealed that two men, heads of a security company in Miami, had planned to kidnap Jovenel Moise and replace him with an American-Haitian.
– Jair Bolsonaro. The former far-right Brazilian president (2019-2022), Jair Bolsonaro, was stabbed in the abdomen in September 2018, during the election campaign that would have led to his presidency, in Minas Gerais, southern Brazil. Seriously injured, he has undergone several operations – including recently – to remedy the after-effects of this attack.