Slavi Binev, controversial businessman and former politician, shot dead in Sofia
Slavi Binev, a controversial business person and former member of the European Parliament and of the National Assembly, was shot dead at his home in Sofia on October 24, the Interior Ministry confirmed.
Acting chief secretary of the Interior Ministry Lyubomir Nikolov told reporters at a noon briefing that three people who were frequent guests at Binev’s home had been present at his address.
A witness said that he heard gunfire and saw three people fleeing in a car. The three suspects were detained by police on the Trakia Motorway near the Trajan’s Gate tunnel in the direction of Plovdiv. They were armed.
Binev was one of the controversial figures whose career in the early 1990s included managing, through his MIG Group, a number of entertainment venues in Sofia
A confidential report on organized crime in the country from the US embassy in Bulgaria dated July 7 2005, published by WikiLeaks, alleged that the criminal activities of the MIG Group include prostitution, drugs, and trafficking in stolen cars.
Before entering business and politics, Binev was actively involved in taekwondo. In 1992, he won a European title in this sport, and later held leadership positions in sports organisations.
In recent years, he has been the president of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation and first vice-president of the European Taekwondo Union.
He began his career in politics with the far-right pro-Russian Ataka party. Binev became a member of the European Parliament for Ataka in 2007 after Bulgaria joined the EU, and was re-elected in 2009 as an MEP.
Binev quit Ataka in 2011 to found his own political party, before joining the ultra-nationalist National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria in 2014.
That year, he was elected as an MP. Binev became head of the parliamentary committee on culture and media, which led to large-scale controversy and protests by cultural figures.
Meetings of the committee over which he presided on the issue of Budget 2015 were boycotted by the Culture Ministry and by the leadership of the public broadcasters, Bulgarian National Television and Bulgarian National Radio. In December 2014, Binev resigned as head of the committee.
In Bulgaria’s 2017 parliamentary elections, Binev was a candidate from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.
In May 2026, he was re-elected as Chairman of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation for a new five-year term.
