I wanted to be hero, says nurse in Monaco trial of century

THE nurse stumbled, stabbed and bleeding, out of the elevator of his billionaire employer’s luxury penthouse.

There had been an attack, he told the building's night watchman, call the police.

So started a dramatic and bizarre chain of events that ended with the death of banker Edmond Safra, one of the world's richest men, and now sees the nurse in court, facing a possible life term in what the principality's leading newspaper dubs Monaco's Trial of the Century. In proceedings this week, the real story of what happened that fateful dawn of December 3 1999, is emerging. It turns out there was no attack. Instead, American nurse Ted Maher admits, he stabbed himself and started a fire that raged out of control, leading to the deaths of Safra and another nurse from smoke inhalation.

For Monaco, a tiny principality on the Mediterranean, the trial is a sensation.

Long a safe tax haven for the rich and famous and home to the Monte Carlo Formula One Grand Prix, Monaco has a crime rate so low that a police witness who testified yesterday said that in 22 years of service he had never seen a gunshot wound. Maher's defence team argued the deaths resulted from a bad idea gone wrong.

By starting the fire, faking the attack and then telling the night watchman to call police, Maher hoped to emerge as a hero who saved Safra by hiding him in a bathroom and bringing in the rescue services. "It was very stupid," Maher, 44, testified yesterday. Pinching the bridge of his nose and bowing his head, he added: "I will have to live with this daily for the rest of my life ... It was a terrible accident, that's all it was. A terrible accident for which I share my part of the responsibility."

"I never wanted to hurt Safra," he said. But lawyers for Safra's widow, Lily, say Maher should be judged for his actions, not his intentions.

By starting the fire, Maher took a risk that led to the death of Safra and the nurse, Vivian Torrente, they argue. If convicted of arson that led to the death of two people, Maher faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Safra, the 67-year-old founder and principal stock owner of the Republic National Bank of New York, had Parkinson's disease and required around-the-clock care. He paid Maher 640 a day. Maher, originally from Auburn, Maine, told prosecutors it was "the most beautiful job he had ever had". But Maher also felt that Safra's chief nurse belittled him and he wanted more authority. So, just six weeks after arriving in Monaco, he hatched the idea of setting the fire to ingratiate himself with his boss and earn a promotion. "He's the fireman who started the fire. They do it to be heroes, not to hurt people," said Michael Griffith, one of Maher's lawyers. Griffith also defended Billy Hayes, an American whose imprisonment in Turkey for drug smuggling inspired the movie Midnight Express.

"The whole thrust of the defence is, yes, he started a fire, in some tissues, to make a smoke alarm go off," Griffith said. "We're saying that what he did was, of course, stupid but he didn't intentionally do it to hurt these people." Dressed in a plain grey suit, speaking in a monotone voice and looking gaunt, at times defeated, Maher also argued in court that rescuers were slow in responding to the fire. He claimed that police stopped firefighters from entering the building, apparently believing that two masked attackers Maher had spoken about were still at large inside.

Police and firefighters "got on the premises at 5.15am and didn't get into Mr. Safra's room until 7.45", said Griffith, his lawyer. "It's abhorrent that two and a half hours went by and no one saved this man. These were keystone cops." Safra's seeming obsession with security also appears to have delayed efforts to rescue him. Police arrived at his penthouse to find a locked reinforced door. Windows were bulletproofed. Maher said he couldn't have provided rescuers with a key to get into the apartment because Safra had ordered his employees to turn them in three weeks earlier.

Griffith said the defence suspects that Safra and Torrente, who were sheltering in the smoke-filled bathroom, fought about whether to unlock the door and escape despite receiving repeated telephone calls telling them it was safe to come out.

"Safra's blood was on her head, her bra and her panties. Her DNA was under his fingernails, his DNA was under her fingernails and she had bruises on her knees ... This was obviously an altercation," he said.

The trial is not expected to conclude before December 2.