SOFIA, May 14: The president of top Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv was gunned down in his car here on Monday, less than two years after the club's previous owner was also killed, police said.

Alexander Tasev, 45, was found dead, shot twice in the head, in his black Mercedes in a posh Sofia neighbourhood.

Radio reports said that Tasev owned a large export-import business in cherries and was also close to the drug-dealing mafia.

His predecessor at the helm of Plovdiv, Georgy Iliev, was shot by a sniper in Aug 2005 outside his bar in the Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach, while celebrating his team’s 1-0 victory against OFK Belgrade in a UEFA Cup second qualifying round.—AFP