MG Corporation President Iliya Pavlov at his last appearance in public at Thursday's hearing of the murder trial of former PM Andrey Lukanov. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (novinite.com)
MG Corporation President Iliya Pavlov, 43 was shot dead near the central office of MG Corporation on G. M. Dimitrov boulevard at 7:50 pm on Friday night. He died on the spot. He was brought to Pirogov Emergency Institute at 8:05 pm.
He was shot with one bullet in the heart, sources from the emergency hospital told novinite.com. The gunman was a professional as the shot was very precise.
Gunman has shot at MG Corporation President Iliya Pavlov from behind the bushes opposite the central building of MG Corporation at G. M. Dimitrov boulevard. The gun was without silencer. The murder took place in front of the eyes of the guards of Iliya Pavlov.
The shooting came one day after Iliya Pavlov testified in the murder trial of former Prime Minister Andrey Lukanov and denied conflicts with the killed high-profile politician.
All necessary efforts and measures will be taken to arrest those who killed MG Corporation President Iliya Pavlov, Prime Minister Saxe-Coburg said. He expressed his condolences to the family of Iliya Pavlov.
The leaders of the ruling party were taken by surprise by the news, which broke amid a critical meeting of Prime Minister Saxe-Coburg with ruling party lawmakers and ministers, during which he criticised them.
Politicians from right wing opposition UDF and left-wing BSP said the government was responsible for the murder.
Interior Minister Petkanov who attended the meeting of the ruling party MPs and ministers in National Palace of Culture immediately left the hall when the news broke.
Boyko Borisov, chief secretary with the Interior Ministry, said that the police was working on several versions for the murder of the President of MG Corporation Iliya Pavlov.
"You know that he was not just anybody," Borissov said.
Business Club Vuzrazhdane condemned the murder of Iliya Pavlov in a statement to the media late on Friday evening. "The members of Club Vuzrazhdane are shocked. We still cannot talk about Iliya Pavlov in the past sense," the announcement read.
Iliya Pavlov was invited on Friday to attend the Ball of the Topmodels in hotel Radisson, hosted by Evgeni Minchev who told Darik radio that he was sure that the killed businessman was heading to the Ball when the murder took place.
Pavlov is Bulgaria's wealthiest businessmen who transformed his former notorious Multigroup corporation, set up in the beginning of the democratic changes in Bulgaria into MG Corporation to change its shady "grouping" image.
Iliya Pavlov was ranked eight with USD 1,5 B among twenty-five billionaires in Central and Eastern Europe by the Polish magazine Wprost in November, 2002.
In February 2002, the president of the financial conglomerate MG Corporation Iliya Pavlov was announced businessmen of Bulgaria for 2001.
An assault on the life of Iliya Pavlov was attempted in 1997 when a bomb wrecked two of the cars belonging to conglomerate Multigroup on the road between Sofia and Bistritsa One of the cars was Iliya Pavlov's armoured BMW, but he was not in the car. No one was hurt. The incident happened around 1 a.m. on June 17. The powerful blast resulted in a crater seven metres long and three metres deep.
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