Spattered with blood, they offer a glimpse into the tortured soul of a would-be assassin. The poems and writings of alleged gunman Juraj Cintula suggest a deeply disturbed psyche – though not necessarily a madman.

As the pensioner appeared in court charged with trying to assassinate the Slovakian prime minister, The Mail on Sunday was given exclusive access to his literary works.

The rambling collection reveals Cintula's thoughts on topics ranging from the state of his country to pornographic fantasies.

At first glance, much of it appears to be political gibberish. However, after the 71-year-old allegedly acted out his frustrations with last Wednesday's violent attack on PM Robert Fico, they may be viewed in a sinister new light.

The cover of his 2010 novel Posolstvo Obete, which translates as The Message Of A Victim, depicts banknotes spattered with blood. The 141-page story features impenetrable prose about a killing during the Soviet era. Cintula lived half of his life under Communism in Czechoslovakia before the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

The pensioner (pictured centre) appeared in court charged with trying to assassinate the Slovakian prime minister, The Mail on Sunday was given exclusive access to his literary works

The poems and writings of alleged gunman Juraj Cintula (pictured) suggest a deeply disturbed psyche – though not necessarily a madman

The cover of his 2010 novel Posolstvo Obete, which translates as The Message Of A Victim, depicts banknotes spattered with blood. The 141-page story features impenetrable prose about a killing during the Soviet era

Another tome, featuring a pornographic illustration of a naked dominatrix clutching a dead bird by the neck, will doubtless keep psychiatrists busy for hours

Another tome, featuring a pornographic illustration of a naked dominatrix clutching a dead bird by the neck, will doubtless keep psychiatrists busy for hours.

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This 2007 book is titled Diptych, or Double Painting, with the sub-headings Bitkarova Bolest – Pain Of A Fighter – and Erotika. Does this book have a double meaning, and does it offer any insights into what happened last week? At the library in Cintula's home town of Levice, where the books were revealed to The MoS, academic Anna Medzihradska shrugged her shoulders. She said: 'I have read them all. And I have spoken many times to their author. I honestly don't know what they mean.'

Every month for several years, she and Cintula and about 30 other members of the Rainbow Literary Club would meet over tea and biscuits in the wood-panelled library. Its members are avid readers and authors, of varying success.

Before the revolution, Cintula – who wrote his first romantic poem aged 17, according to his library blurb – was unable to publish any of his critical writings.

But while some of his troubled works serve to baffle rather than inform, there can be little doubt about his anthology Dream Of A Rebel, which is dripping with rage and revolutionary zeal. The lines of one poem seem prophetic: 'In my dreams, the police were looking for me… I dreamed of riots... they beat me… people judged me… I no longer cry over shackles, I will weep over the dead.'

Slovakia's PM Robert Fico (pictured) is fighting for his life in hospital following an assassination attempt on Wednesday 

The Velvet Revolution of November 1989 heralded the end of four decades of Czechoslovakians enduring the miserable yoke of Soviet-style Communism

Juraj Cintula, 71, is a writer and founder member of a literary club. His son was quoted as telling local media: 'I have no idea what father intended, what he planned, why it happened. Maybe there was some short circuit'

Graphic depicting the events following the shooting of Slovakian PM Robert Fico

Security scrambled to tackle the shooter, 71-year-old Juraj Cintula from Levice, to the ground

The gunman is allegedly 71-year-old Juraj Cintula who was arrested at the scene

The PM was shot in Handlova, north-east of Bratislava, in the central European country

Supporters and wellwishers of Slovakia's prime minister place flowers in front of the F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia on May 18

After the assassination attempt, Cintula was seen calmly answering questions in a police station, sporting a bruise on his forehead and stating he 'did not agree with the policies of the government'.

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The married father-of-two exasperated his fellow book club members by endlessly talking about politics, and he eventually stopped attending in 2019. Slovakian author Janka Bernathova said she told Cintula: 'Juraj, open those clenched fists, release them and accept God through prayer. And he told me then: 'God took my brother from me.' He had a twin brother who died when he was just a teenager.'

Whether he took her advice or not, Cintula turned to a far-Right group, Slovenski Branci. They pictured him standing next to their paramilitary-style members and he apparently tried to recite some of his poetry. Group member Peter Svrek recalled that after half an hour, Cintula left and never attended another event.

He did, however, appear increasingly desperate for his voice to be heard. Ever since agitating for union rights as a miner in Handlova in the 1980s – risking the wrath of the Czech state, whose notorious secret police the StB kept a file on him – he was vocal for decades against corruption.

After the divisive and pro-Putin PM Robert Fico won a fourth term, last September, Cintula's rage mushroomed. He could be found yelling profanities outside government meetings.

To those who know him, the events of last week were a culmination of a lifetime's worth of bitterness at the political elite and their failure to build a just society after the fall of Communism. Whether his mind is irrational or just tortured remains to be seen.