Dogan is a mafioso, openly bragging about his 7-digit consultancy fees in hydroengineering projects (he’s a philosopher by education). He worked for the local KGB equivalent before the fall of communism, and was tasked with creating a minority party. The regions of Bulgaria with predominantly Turkish population vote 95% for his party, he controls much of the business activities there, and, in recent years, the flow of EU subsidies.

He’s been challenged by a splinter group of his party who, for the first time, has a chance to break his monopoly on the Turkish ethnical vote in Bulgaria. This will give him the perfect opportunity to consolidate his party, both creating a heroic-martyr image, and via a party witchhunt. (The attacker, also an ethnical Turk, was a delegate of the party conference, albeit with somewhat dubious credential papers, so somebody in the party must have helped him obtain them.)

The gun was loaded with two blank shells and one with some kind of pepper-spray-type compound. No real assassin is that stupid.