Aristocrat's murder trial opens
Updated on 22 May 2007
The widow of a millionaire British aristocrat goes on trial in France, accused of conspiring to murder her husband.
It's a tale of alleged skullduggery and greed leading to murder.
Mohammed M'Barek has denied the murder charge, saying he accidentally killed the Earl of Shaftesbury during a heated argument.
The tenth earl of Shaftesbury was a flamboyant aristocrat with a penchant for "exotic" women. Jamila M'Barek was a former nightclub hostess.
They lived on France's exclusive Cote d'Azur.
But when his eye began to wander, their two-year marriage crumbled - as did her hopes of a multi-million pound inheritance.
Which is why, according to the prosecution, Mohammed, murdered him at their apartment in Cannes M'Barek's brother.
But in court today M'Barek pleaded his innocence, appealing for help from the new French president, no less.
"I tell the new president that one cannot do this to people. To fathers of families."
Jamila's brother admits he did indeed kill the earl, but he claims it was a drug-fuelled argument that "went wrong".
'I tell the new president that one cannot do this to people. To fathers of families.'Mohammed M'Barek
So why was his body dumped in a remote ravine near Nice, where it lay for five months, so decomposed it took DNA tests to identify?
The case of the missing lord captivated the jet set. Why was money transferred from his account to Mohammed's shortly after he went missing? Did Mohammed kill him to prevent the divorce? Or was it just an accident?
It was an emotional day for the earl's former wife. She was questioned about her romance with tennis star Bjorn Borg. She told of helping her brother load the earl's dead body into the boot of his car.
Her marriage she described as a curse. But as for money - that, she said, was never an issue.
