Friends in town of Levice say 71-year-old showed no signs of planning attack, while Slovakian president says climate of hate is collective work

Mile L’udovit, like other residents of the unassuming grey apartment block on the outskirts of the sleepy central Slovakian town of Levice, considered Juraj Cintula a reliable neighbour and friend.

Having lived side by side with him for more than 40 years, L’udovit could never have imagined the 71-year-old former security guard and amateur poet would be suspected of perpetrating the worst political attack in Slovakian modern history – shooting the prime minister multiple times at point-blank range.

Peter Pellegrini says PM ‘escaped death by a hair’ and urges people to temper their emotions after ‘we crossed a red line’

The Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, is in a stable condition but “not out of the woods yet”, officials have said, as the country’s president-elect pleaded for unity after a shooting that laid bare the deep political divisions of recent months.

The shooting, the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader in more than 20 years, sent shockwaves across the continent, with leaders linking the violence to an increasingly febrile and polarised political climate across its countries in the run-up to European parliament elections in June.