testified in Atlanta By Patrick Burgess and Sandy Hodson Bermudian Charles Lyndon Fubler left a Georgia courtroom dismayed after the man suspected of shooting him was not convicted by a jury yesterday.

Mr. Fubler finally got a chance to see the American gangster accused of shooting the soccer star three years ago in an Augusta neighbourhood.

Mark Lorenzo Squires -- a Los Angeles "Crip'' -- will be sentenced today for shooting Sheila Kitchens and her younger brother George moments after Mr.

Fubler was shot on November 13, 1995.

But with a conviction in the mid-western state of Colorado, Squires faces up to 105 years in a Georgia state penitentiary for shooting the pair.

Squires now faces the death penalty in North Carolina where he will be tried in connection with a June 12, 1998 murder and a July 4, 1998 double murder.

"I wouldn't wish it on anybody. They had to teach me to walk again,'' today's Augusta Chronicle quotes Mr. Fubler as telling the jury in the day long trial.

Mr. Fubler had been flown in by prosecutors from Bermuda last week.

He has lost much of his peripheral vision after being shot in the head with a .38 bullet, in addition to suffering seizures, and cannot play soccer under doctor's orders.

Mr. Fubler, 27, is now living and working in Bermuda. Once a policeman for two years, he left the Service in 1991 to pursue his education.

He endured months of arduous physical therapy, including learning how to read and write. He returns to Augusta once a year for check-ups.

In 1996 his mother was quoted in The Royal Gazette : "The doctors say it is because of his willpower that he has progressed so far. They didn't expect him to come this far, so fast. They can't believe he is the same person they first saw.'' The jury deliberated for just 20 minutes before passing its verdict.

Squires fled the scene of the Fubler/Kitchens shooting and was on the run until last summer when he was arrested in North Carolina.

Squires was convicted on three charges of kidnapping -- in Georgia, holding or confining a person constitutes kidnapping -- two charges of aggravated assault, one charge of possession of a firearm and burglary in commission of an assault. But he was cleared of a third charge of aggravated assault in which Mr. Fubler was named as the victim.

In 1995 Mr. Fubler was on an Augusta State College soccer scholarship and was physical education major. The jury heard Mr. Fubler was dating Sheila Kitchens in November 1995 and was visiting her on the morning of November 13, to take her 4-year-old son to day care.

Ms Kitchens had befriended Squires in an attempt to turn his life around, she told the jury.

Squires wanted more than friendship and became jealous of Mr. Fubler and on that morning chased and shot him first. Then Squires came after her she said, adding: "He looked me in the eyes... then he shot me. I hit the floor and I couldn't get up again.'' Shooting suspect cleared Ms Kitchens -- who now campaigns for paraplegics and has spoken to the Bermuda Handicapped Association -- is paralysed from the chest down.

Her brother George, now 15, testified Squires looked at him before shooting and said: "I thought you loved me.'' Squires' accomplice, Daniel Downing, was convicted in March 1996 of driving him to the Kitchens' family home and of holding Ms Kitchens as she was shot.

Downing is serving a 55-year sentence for his crime.

Sandy Hodson is a reporter for the Augusta Chronicle Not guilty: Mark Squires leaves a courtroom after beating a charge of shooting Charles Lyndon Fubler.

Making a point: Charles Lyndon Fubler testifying yesterday.

BERMUDIAN BDA