Šiško's militia sparks alarm
Ljubljana, 17 December - A marginal political figure for well over a decade, Andrej Šiško made national and even international news in September after pictures and videos went viral of him holding an assault rifle and parading a group of about sixty men wearing balaclavas in what appeared to have been some kind of boot camp.
Maribor
Andrej Šiško, the leader of the far-right United Slovenia party and the self-styled leader of a group of men called the Štajerska Guard.
Photo: Andreja Seršen Dobaj/STA
File photo
Calling themselves the Štajerska Guard, the para-military group claimed to have gathered in defence of the "Country of Štajerska" which they declared in 2017. The footage sparked widespread condemnation and three days later Šiško was arrested, along with the man who shot and posted the evidence.
The latter turned out to be Matej Lesjak, a member of the youth wing of the Democratic Party (SDS), whose leader Janez Janša initially linked the militia to what he calls the "deep state". Lesjak was expelled from the party, while Šiško remains in custody pending trial, charged with incitement to violent subversion of the constitutional order.
Šiško is a former ultras who has served prison for attempted murder. He heads the nationalist non-parliamentary party United Slovenia. Running on an anti-immigrant platform, he won of 2.21% of the vote in the 2017 presidential election and 1.43% in the latest mayoral election in his home town Maribor while in custody.