Former Bulgarian MEP and taekwondo chief Slavi Binev shot dead at his home in Sofia
Slavi Binev, 60, a former member of the European Parliament and of Bulgaria's National Assembly and head of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation, was shot dead at his home in Sofia on Saturday, the eve of Bulgaria's presidential election. Three men were detained on the Trakia motorway as they were leaving the capital. Police say the killing most likely stemmed from an unresolved financial dispute and was not a contract killing.
Slavi Binev, president of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation, vice-president of the European Taekwondo Union and a former MEP, was shot dead at his home in Sofia on the morning of Saturday, 24 October, Bulgaria's interior ministry said. The emergency call came in at 10:18, police said. Binev was killed by a single shot to the head, and one spent cartridge was found at the scene, acting interior ministry chief secretary Lyubomir Nikolov told reporters, according to the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).
Three men were detained shortly afterwards on the Trakia motorway near the Trayanovi Vrata tunnel as they were leaving the capital. Nikolov said two of them have Turkish names and Turkish citizenship and the third holds a Bulgarian identity card. They work in construction, own a building company and are currently developing two residential complexes in Sofia. Police recovered two pistols: one was thrown out of the car just before it stopped, and the other was found in a suspect's bag. A witness heard a shot and saw three men entering and leaving the house, Nikolov said.
Investigators do not believe it was a contract killing. "When entering and leaving, these people did not hide either their faces or the car they arrived in," Nikolov said, adding that the victim and the detained men had known one another for a long time and that the shooting was most likely linked to unresolved financial disputes. Sofia police director Nikolay Peltekov said the case would probably be sent to prosecutors on Sunday. Public broadcaster BNT reported that Binev had been due to open an international taekwondo tournament an hour later. No charges had been announced by Saturday evening, local media reported.
Binev, born in Sofia in 1965, was a European taekwondo champion before going into business; in the 1990s he ran some of Sofia's best-known nightclubs, and Bulgarian National Radio notes his name was linked at the time to conflicts between criminal groups. He was elected to the European Parliament on the list of the nationalist Ataka party in 2007 and re-elected in 2009, later founded his own party and in 2014 entered the National Assembly with the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria. His appointment as head of parliament's culture committee drew protests and he stepped down from the post.
The killing came the day before Bulgarians voted on Sunday, 25 October, to elect a new president.