Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been released to convalesce at home, but he has a long and difficult recovery ahead of him after his intestine was damaged in five places in an attempted assassination.

Director of the hospital where Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spent the past two weeks after being shot in what may yet be determined as a terror attack confirmed that he was discharged to return home last night. Fico travelled from the F.D.Roosevelta Banská Bystrica Hospital to his apartment in Bratislava on Thursday afternoon. Local media reports increased police and security activity in the area around Fico’s city apartment.

The hospital director thanked the Prime Minister for having been a “disciplined patient” in her statement this morning, but said a long road lay ahead for his recovery. Rehabilitation will not be easy and will not be quick, she said.

Fico’s release from hospital came 15 days after he was shot several times in what appears to be an attempted assassination.

Until now, very little concrete information has been released about Fico’s injuries after the shooting. However in recent days it has been revealed that bullets, or at least fragments, struck the Slovak Prime Minister in the gut, hip, arm, and leg. The strike to his belly was most dangerous, it was said, with his small intestine perforated five times.

Fico’s health is said to be improving in line with medical expectation and he is now able to eat and walk with a stick.

Earlier this week government colleague Erik Kaliňák revealed specific details about Fico’s injuries for the first time, including that he had been hit in the intestine. He said: “I was there [at the hospital], I talked to the doctors, and it was the millimetres that decided whether… it would be fatal. It hit the small intestine in such a way that it was shot through five times, but the doctors performed miracles”.

As previously reported, the suspected gunman was arrested at the scene and has subsequently confessed and agreed to assist police in their enquiries. The suspect, identified as left wing poet and activist Juraj Cintula, told police according to their report that he wanted to get Fico out of office by shooting him, but didn’t intend to kill.

The reason for this desire was disagreement with Fico’s policies, he said, and particularly the Fico government keeping Slovakia from becoming embroiled in the Ukraine war. The gunman is said to have been very keen to see military aid sent to Kyiv. While the investigation is ongoing