A former swimwear model told a Spanish court that she did not murder her British former boyfriend in his Costa del Sol mansion, claiming she shot him dead in self-defence.
Maria Kukucova, normally known as Mayka Kukucova, wept as she told the jury on the first day of her murder trial in Malaga that there had been a struggle with Bristol-based millionaire Andrew Bush and the revolver in his hand had gone off accidentally.
"I didn't want to cause him any harm," the 26-year-old Slovakian model said of the night of April 5, 2014 that ended the 48-year-old jeweller's life. "The gun just went off. I just wanted to break free from his grasp."
Prosecutors argue that Kukucova waited with a gun for Bush to enter his holiday home in Estepona, shooting him three times, twice in the head and once in the arm. They say the accused placed the gun in Bush's hand as he lay in a pool of blood.
Today, the accused said she did not remember the exact circumstances of the second and third shots. According to Kukucova, she had spent two days in Bush's mansion collecting her things after the couple broke up in late 2013.