The public killing of businessman Slavi Binev, a former member of the European Parliament and current chairman of the Bulgarian Taekwondo Federation, surged through international news only hours before Bulgaria’s presidential vote.
The Interior Ministry officially advanced a version of a sudden domestic conflict over unsettled construction bills. Foreign coverage treated the case more broadly. Western outlets stressed Binev’s political past in Brussels, while Asian and sports publications mourned one of the most influential figures in martial arts in the Balkans.
In neighbouring Turkey, media and investigative channels followed the case closely because two of the three people arrested on the Trakiya motorway are Turkish citizens. Leading outlets in Istanbul and Ankara reported that the dispute was not over small sums and that a debt of more than €1 million to businessmen linked to large cartels stood behind the attack.
Major European agencies and political publications in Brussels, Berlin and Paris focused on Binev’s political career. They described a former MEP shot in Sofia the day before the elections and recalled his two terms in the European Parliament from 2007 to 2014. Western analysts noted with concern that this was another landmark killing in Bulgaria within a matter of weeks, after that of Plovdiv businessman Iliyan Filipov.
In South Korea and other Asian countries where martial arts have the status of state policy, the news was received as a heavy blow to sport. Major sports media published condolences and described Binev as a long-time leader of Balkan taekwondo and vice president of the European Taekwondo Union. Asian outlets stressed that he was killed only hours before he was due to open a large international children’s tournament in Sofia together with Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev.
In Seoul and Tokyo the story was read entirely through sport, with official positions of the federations cited as calling his death an irreplaceable loss for combat sports in Europe.