Who Is Michael Shields?

Michael Shields is a 20-year-old Liverpool supporter who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in Bulgaria for an attack on a barman, a crime he vehemently denies. The incident happened in May 2005 in the golden Sands resort of Varna, just days after Shields had witnessed his beloved Liverpool come back from three goals behind in Istanbul to win the European Champions League. Bulgarian Martin Georgiev was attacked by a gang in the early hours of 20th May and eventually killed by a man said to be of British origin, who dumped a large slab of rock over his head. Despite claiming he was in bed at the time of the incident (evidence backed up by several alibis) and despite the fact there was no forensic evidence linking him to the attack, Shields was arrested, charged and sentenced within two months.

In a further twist, the court rejected a written confession by a Liverpool electrician, Graham Sankey, to the same crime, a statement that he retracted at a later date. An investigation carried out by a retired British senior police officer concluded that Shield's conviction was "not worth the paper it's written on". Despite having his sentence cut to 10 years, hopes that the 20-year-old could serve out the rest of his sentence in Britain have not been met by Bulgarian authorities. He was still in a Bulgarian jail when this piece was published in October 2006.