Following the shooting death of Slovak Prime Minister Roberto Fico, AFP looks at five other political leaders around the world who have been targets of armed attacks in recent years.
In a drama that shocked a country with low gun crime, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who resigned in 2020 but remained an important political voice, was accused of campaigning for the ruling party. He was then killed by a lone gunman. July 8, 2022.
Prime Minister Abe’s murder suspect targeted the former leader, believing he had ties to the Unification Church, and was rebelling against his mother’s large donations to the church.
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was shot dead by a group of 28 mercenaries at his private residence in Port-au-Prince late at night on July 7, 2021.
His wife Martine was also shot but survived.
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His death threw Haiti, already a lawless and gang-plagued country, into further turmoil.
Most of his attackers were former Colombian soldiers.
A US investigation revealed that two top men at a Miami security firm planned to kidnap Moise and replace him with a Haitian-American.
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On November 3, 2022, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister and former cricket superstar, was gunned down as his open-top truck drove through a busy street in the eastern city of Wazirabad.
Khan was ousted from power earlier that year after losing support from the military and was campaigning for snap elections.
The government said the assassination plot was the work of a lone wolf attacker, and police said a “confession” video by a junk shop owner said he acted because Mr. Khan’s rally disrupted the Muslim call to prayer. leaked out.
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On September 1, 2022, a man unsuccessfully shot Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Kirchner at close range as she greeted supporters gathered in front of her home in Buenos Aires.
Kirchner is a highly polarizing figure in Argentina, who served as center-left president from 2007 to 2015 and sharply divided the country between supporters and opponents of her Peronist movement. He was fighting corruption charges.
Her attacker, a Brazilian man raised in Argentina, was seen on social media with tattoos related to Nazi symbols.
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On September 6, 2018, Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach by an assailant while campaigning and was later deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain known as the “Tropical Trump,” underwent abdominal surgery after the attack and went on to win the election.
He served one term before losing to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a veteran leftist seeking re-election.
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