Fico Attack Conjures Up Ghosts of Maverick European Politicians' Strange Deaths

After searching the house of gunman Juraj Cintula, Slovak police have stuck to their initial conclusion: Robert Fico's shooting was an attempt at a political assassination of a “non-mainstream” European leader. Just like the EU establishment and its media, Cintula was irritated by Fico’s opposition to sending Slovakian weapons to Ukraine - for him, it was reason enough to justify a public murder of the prime minister.

Was this a unique incident in Europe? No, because the hatred that Fico provoked in mainstream press with his reluctance to “add fuel to the fire” in Ukraine was not exceptional, but typical. “Putin’s pal,” “illiberal threat,” “Kremlin-friendly hardliner” – such clichés became commonplace in mainstream European press against any non-systemic political leader who stands for his or her country's sovereignty or veers from the EU’s “common foreign policy,” not necessarily in unison with Russia.

Often, such politicians become victims of hushed-up assassination attempts or die strange deaths.

The assassination attempts against the leader of France’s RN party Marine Le Pen (2017) and the co-chairman of Germany’s AfD Tino Chrupalla (2023) were largely ignored by the press or even put in doubt (in the case of Chrupalla). And two strange deaths of political figures of primary importance for Germany and Poland – the sudden “suicides” of Germany’s longtime Vice-Chancellor Jürgen Möllemann and Poland’s Vice-Premier Andrzej Lepper – were never properly investigated or explained.

Möllemann, a passionate and experienced sky-diver, died in the air on June 5, 2003. During his jump, the steering lines of his parachute malfunctioned – 22 minutes after the Bundestag lifted the former vice-chancellor’s parliamentary immunity.

Before that motion, the politician had been accused of anti-Semitism because of his opposition to the policy stance of his party – the liberal Free Democrat Party of Germany (FDP). Möllemann considered the party’s policy too pro-Israel and accused FDP’s chairman Guido Westerwelle of blocking his appointment as minister. In his book "Klartext", Möllemann wrote that Westerrwelle did it at the behest of the then-prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon.

In response, Westerwelle lashed out with personal attacks against the maverick party member. After the latter’s death, Westerwelle for many years was the foreign minister in Angela Merkel’s governments – something that would hardly be possible if Möllemann, a longtime political partner of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, had remained a leading figure in the FDP, or founded his own party (Möllemann mentioned such a possibility shortly before his death.)

On a side note, Westerwelle supported the violent Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2013-2014 – coming to Kiev on Merkel’s orders and speaking at Maidan rallies even after they became violent.

For his part, Lepper, Poland’s former vice-premier and the leader of a very successful Samooborona (Self-Defense) party, was found dead in his office on August 5, 2011. According to the official version, Lepper - a rich landowner and a father of three - hung himself on the hook of his punch bag “in a moment of depression.”

According to the version of the Polish prosecutor’s office, Lepper, was suffering from the consequences of the collapse of Poland’s right-wing ruling coalition, of which he was a part. The problem is, however, that this coalition had collapsed in 2007, four years earlier.

Both Lepper’s widow and his son Tomasz do not believe that he could have committed suicide - especially without leaving any note and on the eve of a planned family gathering. “Daddy never allowed political problems to damage his family life,” Tomasz told TVP television after his father’s death. He does not give credence to the official version up to this day.

However, Lepper’s political enemies keep calling him “Russia’s stooge” even after his death because of his membership in Soviet-backed Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) in 1978-1980 and his constant feuds with Leszek Balcerowicz, a US-supported “liberal reformer” in the 1990s.

It is interesting to note that in his reaction to the attempted murder of Fico, the speaker of Poland’s parliament, Szymon Holownia called on Poles “to stop seeing a Russian agent in everyone.” Maybe, if Warsaw had followed that advice in 2011, Lepper could still be alive and leading his party, changing the Polish political landscape.