ght. "The unknown assassin climbed up to... the second floor, to the window of the intensive care ward at around two o'clock on Sunday morning with the aid of a six-metre aluminium folding ladder," police spokeswoman Marta Bujnáková told journalists on Monday. The assailant fired through a closed window and blinds with a machinegun, hitting Holub several times in the face and head, she said. Holub, reported to be the top underworld boss in Slovakia's second largest city Košice, was hospitalised after being shot and seriously injured two weeks ago in the bar of Bratislava's luxury hotel Danube. His companion was killed on the spot and the assailant escaped unhindered from the hotel. At the time of the murder a policeman was on guard outside the intensive care unit, Bujnáková said. On September 22, Holub narrowly escaped death when unkown assailants on a motorbike shot at him, but missed, in a petrol station in Kosice. Holub's killing is widely believed to be the latest incident in a gang war in Slovakia among Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian and Yugoslav mafiosi. In February, Miroslav Sýkora, 35, and his bodyguard were shot dead at high noon outside the Holiday Inn hotel in central Bratislava. Sýkora was described by the police as one of the most influential men in the country's underworld. SME linked Holub on Monday to the kidnapping of Slovak president Michal Kováč's son, Michal Kováč junior, in 1995.