Hours After a Sliven Stabbing, Police Detain a Man Who Once Spent Six Years in Prison
A young man was stabbed to death in Sliven on Wednesday evening, and within hours police had detained the suspected killer — a man whose name surfaced in a 2017 television investigation into drug trafficking behind bars, when he was serving a six-year prison sentence. bTV reported that the detained man is Ivan Radev, known by the nickname Monkata, a figure well known to police and described as criminally active.
The two timelines run in opposite directions. According to bTV, Radev spent years in the Burgas prison system and only recently walked out; on Wednesday night, dnes.dir.bg reported, he was back in custody, this time detained in the nearby village of Chokoba, according to unconfirmed information. Sliven’s police flooded the city after the killing, stopping and checking cars at the city exits in a manhunt that residents said included prepared spike strips for forcing vehicles to stop.
What Happened in the Druzhba Neighborhood
According to dnes.dir.bg, citing the local Radio 999, a conflict broke out between two men in the Druzhba neighborhood of Sliven, near a well-known gas station; one of them stabbed the other fatally with a knife and fled. Both outlets report that the victim and the attacker knew each other. Vanya Beleva, spokesperson for the Sliven District Prosecutor’s Office, confirmed to the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency that a man suspected of a serious crime committed that day in Sliven, in which a person died, had been detained.
The prosecutor’s office said the investigation is proceeding on hot trails and procedural-investigative actions are under way, but details about the victim and the cause of the fatal fight have not been released. Beleva said the motives and the mechanism of the crime are still being clarified and that more details would be announced on Thursday, according to dnes.dir.bg.
Why Police Knew the Suspect’s Name
bTV reported that Radev’s name became widely known in 2017, when the station investigated drug trafficking inside prisons. At the time, he was serving a six-year sentence in Burgas prison for the kidnapping of a drug dealer. Speaking on bTV’s camera, Radev claimed he had distributed methamphetamine inside the prison for more than three years and that the trafficking was possible with the participation and protection of prison administration staff. After those revelations, the Burgas District Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into drug trafficking behind bars.
What Is Confirmed and What Is Not
The detention itself is confirmed: Beleva confirmed it to BTA, and dnes.dir.bg reported that police were checking every vehicle, with drivers required to open rear doors or windows and officers searching the trunks of vans and pickups. The identity of the detainee as Ivan Radev, however, comes from bTV’s own information and unconfirmed reports in other outlets; as of publication, neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office had officially released the suspect’s name or the circumstances of the detention. bTV noted that no official information on the case had yet come from the institutions, so the circumstances of the detention and any possible charges remain unconfirmed.
Questions Readers Are Asking About the Sliven Killing
The Sliven District Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to BTA that a man suspected of a serious crime was detained but did not publicly name him.
Where was the suspect caught? dnes.dir.bg reported, citing unconfirmed information, that the man was detained in the village of Chokoba near Sliven, hours after the killing, during a police blockade of the city’s exits.
What is known about the victim? The victim was a young man killed in the Druzhba neighborhood of Sliven. Both bTV and dnes.dir.bg report that he and the attacker knew each other, but the prosecutor’s office has not released details about the victim or the cause of the fatal dispute.
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