Slavi Binev, ex-MEP and taekwondo champion, shot dead in Sofia

On Saturday at around 10:30 local time, Slavi Binev, a former member of the European Parliament and European taekwondo champion, was shot dead in Sofia's Pavlovo district. According to police, three armed suspects were detained on a highway near Sofia.

Rescuers arrived at the scene within seven minutes but could no longer help Binev, an international news agency reported. According to Bulgarian media, several people came to the house, and Binev probably had a conflict with them. A worker who was on the property reportedly heard gunshots and then found the businessman dead.

Senior police officer Lyubomir Nikolov said that two of the detainees are Turkish citizens, while the third presented a Bulgarian ID card. All three were armed. Police have not yet confirmed any link between the killing and the race for the presidency.

From sport to politics

Binev was born in Sofia in 1965. In 1992 he became European taekwondo champion at a tournament in Celje, Slovenia. After his sports career he went into business, politics and sports diplomacy: he served as president of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation and as first vice president of the European Taekwondo Union.

He entered politics with the nationalist party Ataka, on whose list he was elected to the European Parliament in 2007, and he kept his seat two years later. He later also served in the Bulgarian parliament, moving between several political groups.

In the 1990s Binev ran, among other things, a security business and owned nightclubs in Sofia. In the past, Bulgarian media linked his activities at the time to organized crime groups that emerged during the post-socialist transformation.

The Bulgarian taekwondo federation also commented on Binev's death: “Today we lost our president, leader, teacher and, above all, our friend Slavi Binev,” its statement says.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz