Bulgarian authorities agreed to allow the UK to pardon Michael Shields, the UK citizen, sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder in Bulgaria.

The UK newspaper Liverpool Daily Post reported Saturday that the Bulgarian Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva had sent a letter to her British counterpart Jack Straw saying Shield's fate now lied in British hands.

Tacheva states that there would be no more legal procedures against Shields in Bulgaria, and that the UK could therefore release him from the British prison, where he is serving the sentence.

The letter of the Bulgarian Justice Minister came in response of an investigation on the case by the BBC.

Shields's father met Friday with the UK Justice Minister Jack Straw to demand that his son be released now that there were no more legal proceedings against him in Bulgaria.

Michael Shields, who turned 21 in September last year, was arrested in Bulgaria as he returned from Liverpool's champions league victory in Istanbul in the summer of 2005.

He was convicted for the attempted murder of bartender Martin Georgiev in the Golden Sands resort in May 2005. The initial sentence of fifteen years was reduced a year later to ten years' imprisonment.

Last year Michael Shields returned to Britain to complete his sentence and was said to have passed a lie detector test with "flying colours".

The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, stipulating that each party to it may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance with its constitution or other laws, is applicable in the case.

The Bulgarian authorities have repeatedly declared they would not agree to the pardoning of Michael Shields.

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