The 21-year-old was moved to an adult prison last month.Bulgaria's president said on Thursday he would not pardon a British soccer fan serving a 10 year jail term for the attempted murder of a bartender at a Black Sea resort.Michael Shields was convicted in July 2005 of smashing a rock over the head of Martin Georgiev during a street brawl in the Golden Sands resort. Shields is serving out his sentence in a British prison. In November, British media speculated Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov could pardon Shields, a Liverpool native. The fan said he was innocent and his family launched a large media campaign in Britain to clear his name.
The president's office said British member of European parliament Arlene McCarthy met Parvanov on Thursday to discuss a possible pardon, but his position was unchanged.
"President Parvanov once again expressed his firm stance that he trusts the Bulgarian courts and said he would not advise Vice President Angel Marin to use his right of pardoning," the president's office said in a statement.
Parvanov said Shields had been allowed to transfer to a British jail and a pardon could not be expected from Bulgaria.
Shields, then 19, had been returning from Istanbul where Liverpool had won Europe's Champions League final in May 2005. He said he was asleep in his room at the time of the attack.
Another Briton faxed a confession to Bulgarian officials saying he had committed the crime and Shields was innocent, but the court rejected it, saying the details of his account conflicted with testimony from nine witnesses who saw the assault and identified Shields as the attacker.
