KEY POINTS:
A brother and sister were each sentenced yesterday by a French court to 25 years jail after being convicted over the killing of the woman's estranged husband, a British lord, to stop a love rival inheriting a fortune.
Jamila M'Barek, 45, was found guilty of conspiring to murder the wealthy Lord Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, to safeguard her financial future. The earl had been on the point of moving in with a young mistress when he was killed.
M'Barek's brother, Mohammed, 43, had admitted killing the earl but said he had died accidentally in a drunken drug-fuelled row - a defence rejected by the court.
"I believe justice was done in the end and I am satisfied with the result," the earl's son, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, said after the verdict.
Shaftesbury divided his time between Britain and the glitzy French Riviera, where he had a reputation as a heavy drinker, womaniser and frequenter of shady bars.
On his marriage to M'Barek in 2002, the earl drew up a will that granted her estates in Ireland valued at ¬7 million (NZ$13.15 million), a luxury apartment in Cannes, property in southwestern France and a monthly ¬7000 income.
The $2700-a-night escort who "targeted rich and powerful men" was accused of paying her brother Mohammed, a former professional footballer, $274,000 to kill her husband in November 2004 and dump his body in the French Riviera.
The tawdry story has played out before the Cour d'Assises in Nice, where both Jamila and Mohammed M'Barek claimed the peer became a sex-crazed drunkard addicted to Viagra, and his death was accidental.
But Nicholas Ashley-Cooper told the court his father Anthony was a "gentle soul".
Facing M'Barek across the courtroom, he said: "Jamila, I do not believe that you ever loved my father, and I believe that you are manipulative and scheming, and ultimately an evil person."
The remains of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 66, were discovered in April 2005 at the bottom of a remote ravine in the foothills of the Alps. Only his boots and the remains of his jeans were left. The body was identified by DNA test.
He had been staying at a hotel in Cannes when he vanished, sparking a Europe-wide search. Theories explored by French police ranged from suicide to kidnap by a gang of art thieves.
But the Oxford-educated philanthropist, once chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, had been throttled by Mohammed M'Barek during a struggle at the Cannes penthouse flat Shaftesbury and his wife shared before their two-year marriage hit the rocks.
Prosecutors claimed Mohammed, who has a history of mental illness, cold-bloodedly strangled the earl. In his defence, M'Barek said he had been drinking heavily and smoking cannabis on the day of the killing. He claimed they got into a fight when the earl appeared to recoil at his attempt to embrace him. In the struggle, the younger man said he strangled his opponent "by accident".
Jamila M'Barek, a copper-haired courtesan who frequented upscale hostess bars across France, denied the money she transferred to her brother in the weeks after Lord Shaftesbury's disappearance was payment for his murder.
She insisted she had cosseted the peer and had no interest in his money, despite persuading him to sign over to her two properties in France and Ireland in his will.
Waving her arms and pacing before the jury, she said her marriage had broken down after the earl started injecting testosterone to satisfy his desire for sex.
Catherine Gurtler, a Swiss madam who employed M'Barek, told the court she had introduced the earl to his future wife as an escort charging her standard rate of $2700 a night.
"Jamila targeted rich and powerful men, and the lord fitted the bill perfectly. Within two months she was sleeping with him all the time."
The earl's dynasty can trace its lineage to William the Conqueror. Friends say he had begun living the lifestyle of a dissolute bachelor following the death of his mother in 1999.
- THE INDEPENDENT
