Former MEP Slavi Binev shot dead at his home in Sofia

Slavi Binev, 60, the head of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation and vice president of the European Taekwondo Union, was shot dead at his home in Sofia on Saturday, police said. (Associated Press)

Police received a call about gunfire at around 10:30 a.m. and found him dead when they arrived at the scene, the Associated Press reported. An investigation is under way.

Top police officer Lyubomir Nikolov told reporters that three suspects were detained on a highway outside Sofia. Two of the suspects held Turkish citizenship, while the third held a Bulgarian identity card, Nikolov said. They were armed, he added, but he did not elaborate on possible motives for the killing.

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry confirmed that Binev was shot at his home in the capital’s Pavlovo district, according to The Death Reports. (The Death Reports)

Binev switched to politics after a successful career as a taekwondo fighter, becoming a member of Bulgaria’s National Assembly and of the European Parliament on nationalist-party tickets, the Associated Press reported. He won the European taekwondo championship in 1992 and served as a member of the European Parliament from 2007 to 2014.

His death coincided with the end of a heated campaign for Sunday’s presidential elections, the Associated Press reported.