The Earl was big news around here for awhile...
NICE, France (AFP) - The widow and brother-in-law of an English lord whose decomposing body was found on the French Riviera went on trial here Tuesday accused of murdering him to get their hands on his fortune. Jamila M'Barek, 45, appeared before the court in Nice charged with accessory to murder, alongside her brother, Mohammed M'Barek, 43, who is accused of murdering Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury. "I loved this man," Jamila M'Barek told the court, pleading innocence. "He brought me peace. He was for me a lover and a father."
...ewww. What is this, Chinatown?
The body of the 66-year-old lord was found in a public dump in April 2005, five months after he vanished from his home in Cannes.
Bet he didn't smell too good...
Prosecutors say M'Barek, a Dutch-Tunisian former nightclub hostess who married the lord in 2002, had feared an impending divorce would threaten her lifestyle as well as inheritance and had persuaded her brother Mohammed to strangle her husband.
Damn him! I'll have to go back to doin drunken sailors in the street!
Mohamed M'Barek -- who was extradited from Germany in 2005 -- initially denied involvement, but later told police he accidentally strangled the lord during an argument.
Oh...that's right! I...forgot.
"I am innocent. My sister is innocent," Mohamed M'Barek told journalists who were given permission by the judge to film the defendants before the opening of the trial."It was just an accident," he said.
Can we go now? And can we have his money?
Mohamed M'Barek also railed against the conditions for his detention and called on President Nicolas Sarkozy and his newly-appointed government to improve the prisons. "You have concentration camps" here, not prisons, Mohamed M'Barek told reporters. A verdict is expected on Friday.
Well get used to them because it appears you're gonna be in one for awhile...
Educated at Eton and Oxford and a fluent French speaker, Ashley-Cooper inherited his title from his grandfather when he was 22 years old, along with the family seat at Wimborne and its 9,000-acre estate. The press has estimated his fortune at seven million euros.
That'll keep you in booze and cheap Arab hookers for awhile...
Ashley-Cooper divided his time between Britain and the French Riviera where he led a colourful and largely nocturnal existence.
"Colourful and nocturnal". I think that's British for "rich old English boozehound who liked cheap hookers".
He met Jamila M'Barek in a Riviera nightclub, married her and gave her an apartment in Cannes. In October 2002, Ashley-Cooper drafted a new will in which he left many of his properties in Ireland and France to Jamila.
Ish all yours, baby...I loves ya, baby...
But he later met another nightclub waitress, Nadia, in Cannes and decided that she would be his new bride.
Whoops...wait a second, baby...I said what?
At the time of his death, he had been living apart from Jamila M'Barek, who was his third wife. Ashley-Cooper was last seen on November 6, 2004 walking out of a Cannes hotel where he had spent the night. His body was found in the town of Theoule-sur-Mer, south of Cannes five months later in April 2005.
Shee ya later, schnookems...gonna find mes anuther wife.
Jamila M'Barek had initially told police that she had last seen her husband at her Cannes apartment on the morning of November 5 and that he had admitted to having financial problems.
Something about whores taking all his money, I think he said. On second thought, I don't recall...
But she later changed her version of the events, telling investigators that he had showed up at her flat drunk and that a fight broke out between him and her brother Mohamed who had come from Germany to pick up 10,000 euros promised by the English lord.
Sorry, Mohamed, but seein how I'm not doin you...kiss my rich white British arse.
Infuriated at Ashley-Cooper's refusal to honour his promise, Mohamed knocked him down and strangled him to death, according to the widow.
DIE...rich infidel English pig who gives me no money!
But prosecutors say the murder was premeditated and that the motive was money.
Nah, c'mahn, Jamila sounds like a class broad...