Earl’s wife guilty of arranging his murder

THE widow of the Earl of Shaftesbury was last night found guilty of arranging his murder.

Jamila M’Barek’s brother Mohammed was also convicted of carrying out the premeditated murder for her.

They were both jailed for 25 years after being found guilty by 10-1 majorities by the jury in Nice, in the south of France.

The badly-decomposed body of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the tenth Earl of Shaftesbury, was found in a remote ravine in the foothills of the Alps in April 2005, five months after he went missing from his 200-a-night hotel on the French Riviera.

Jean-Louis Moreau, the state prosecutor, said Jamila M’Barek, 45, a former nightclub hostess who

became Lord Shaftesbury’s third wife in 2002, paid her brother 150,000 (£105,000) to murder him.

She wanted her estranged husband dead so that he could not divorce her and deny her the chance to inherit valuable properties in France and Ireland.

Her 43-year-old brother killed the 66-year-old peer during a drunken row in November 2004, but claimed throughout his trial that he strangled him “accidentally”. Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, the late peer’s second son and now the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, said he did not believe Ms M’Barek ever loved his father.

He said: “I believe that she is manipulative and scheming, and ultimately an evil person.

“You caused the death of an innocent man and you caused my family a lifetime of hurt.”

The 29-year-old, who sat in court throughout the four-day hearing with his mother Christina Cassell and aunt Lady Frances Ashley-Cooper, added: “During this trial we have heard the words of Mohammed and Jamila and we have seen the evidence brought before us, and it further confirms the type of people we thought they were — cold, deceitful, and without compassion for a man they murdered and betrayed.”

“I don’t understand how people can place no value on human life, and I truly pity them.”

He also rejected the apology Mohammed offered the family in court earlier this week, saying: “I do not forgive him, and will never forgive him as long as he does not admit to the murder of my father.”

The defendants stood impassively in the dock as the presiding judge read out the guilty verdicts.

Speaking outside the court, the current earl said: “I am very relieved this week is finally over and I am looking forward to starting the next chapter of my life.

“I believe justice was done and we are satisfied with the 25 year sentences given to both defendants.

“During the trial we heard a lot of excuses and I don’t think we saw any remorse or compassion from the accused, but I was expecting that from the kind of people they are.”

Ms M’Barek had initially claimed not to have helped her brother dispose of the earl’s remains, but damning mobile phone evidence proved she had visited the remote spot where the body was found two days before the killing.

A conversation between Ms M’Barek and her sister recorded in a prison hospital in which she talked of being an accomplice to the crime and paying her brother 150,000 cash left little doubt about her guilt.