Earl ‘was set to leave wife’

THE Earl of Shaftesbury was about to leave his wife Jamila when he was strangled to death by her brother on the French Riviera, his mistress Nadia Orch testified yesterday.

Taking the stand on the second day of the trial, Orch said Anthony Ashley-Cooper, whose decomposing body was found in April 2005 in a ravine, wanted to start a new life with her.

‘‘Anthony was very, very naive,’’ Orch told the court. ‘‘He had a big heart and always wanted to give everything he had to others.’’

Orch, who met Ashley-Cooper in a bar in Cannes in April 2004, said the 66-year-old aristocrat had grown wary of his wife Jamila and her family who had repeatedly demanded money and threatened to take him to court to get control of his fortune.

Jamila M’Barek, 45, is on trial in Nice on charges of accessory to murder along with her brother Mohamed M’Barek, who is accused of murdering Ashley-Cooper.

Ashley-Cooper’s body was found in undergrowth in Theoule-sur-Mer in April 2005, five months after he disappeared from his home in Cannes.

Prosecutors say Jamila, who married the lord in 2002, feared a divorce would threaten her lifestyle as well as any inheritance and had persuaded her brother Mohamed to strangle her husband.

Mohamed M’Barek, 43, initially denied involvement, but later told police he accidentally strangled the lord during an argument on November 5, 2004.

A verdict is expected tomorrow.