HE WAS a peer of the realm, a “philanthropist who specialised in rescuing lap-dancers”. She was a night club hostess of Tunisian origin - and their meeting and eventual marriage would result in death, deceit and a remarkable murder trial.

Fighting back tears in a French court yesterday, Jamila M’Barek denied paying her brother to strangle her husband, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a flamboyant millionnaire aristocrat, in order to get her hands on his fortune.

In a lengthy, emotional and, at times, rambling testimony, the glamorous blonde insisted she had not married the earl for money and said marrying him had brought about a “curse”.

“I loved this man,” M’Barek told the court. “He brought me peace. He was for me a lover and a father.”

The 45-year-old told the packed Nice courtroom that Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury - a playboy with a penchant for lap-dancers whose decomposing body was found on the French Riviera last year - had died accidentally during a drunken fight with her brother, Mohammed M’Barek, 43, who stands accused of his murder.

The body of the 66-year-old earl was found hidden in undergrowth in a ravine between Nice and Cannes on 5 April 2005, five months after he vanished.

Prosecutors say Jamila M’Barek, who married the earl in Holland in November 2002 after convincing him she was pregnant to him, had feared that divorce would threaten her valuable inheritance and luxury lifestyle if her husband cut her out of his will. They will argue that she persuaded her brother to strangle her husband.

Mohammed M’Barek, who was extradited from Munich in Germany in 2005, initially denied involvement, but later told police that he had accidentally strangled the earl during an argument. Asked about the events of 5 November, 2005, Jamila M’Barek told the court an argument blew up between her brother and her husband - who were both drunk, she said - after Mohammed tried to embrace the earl in greeting. The earl recoiled, and an argument ensued which escalated into a fight, she said, with the pair struggling on the floor.

She said: “It was an accident between two people who had been drinking, that’s it, quite simply.”

She told the court of her horror at the killing, saying she could not tell whether the blood on the floor was her brother’s or her husband’s. Mohammed threw up, she said, and kept repeating “I love you Anthony.” After the fight, she said her brother forced her to help him to put the earl’s body into the boot of his convertible BMW.

She said: “Money was never an issue at home. I was brought up to give, not to take. I had always been prosperous.

“Marrying him was a curse. God bless his soul. I am speaking from my heart. It’s a tragedy, a curse, I feel it every moment of my life. I have had enough of money, but this trial is obsessed with money, money, money.”

She said: “He was a loner. He had no friends, nobody to talk to. He lacked love, so he drank a lot. Deep down we are simple people. This was a curse.”

Jamila M’Barek’s testimony was twice interrupted by furious outbursts from her brother, who sat beside her in the dock.

At one point, Mohammed M’Barek stood up, shouting and gesticulating at the presiding judge, and threatened to leave the court.

“I am innocent. My sister is innocent,” he told court reporters in a dramatic outburst before the opening of the trial.

“It was just an accident,” he said before railing against French prison conditions.

Mohammed M’Barek admitted being in Cannes on the night in question, telling them he had fought with the earl and had killed him “without wanting to” during an argument over a debt of 100,000 (68,000). “For two and a half years I have been in prison for nothing, for a punch,” he told reporters yesterday.

The court must decide whether this version of events is correct, or if - as the judge, Catherine Bonnici, has concluded - the aristocrat walked into a carefully laid trap designed to ensure his disappearance just as he was preparing to divorce Jamila M’Barek.

Philippe Soussi, the lawyer representing the earl’s family said: “Jamila M’Barek, at a given moment, considered that she was going to lose everything in the separation from Anthony Ashley-Cooper. It was at that moment that the idea was born to have him eliminated by her brother.”

Jamila Barek’s lawyer, Franck de Vita, who is pleading for his client to be acquitted, says she is innocent. “I will show that she was the one who asked for a divorce, because of the earl’s dissolute lifestyle over the last months.”

The earl, a heavy drinker who developed a reputation as an international playboy with a particular penchant for lap-dancers and nightclub hostesses, divided his time between his homes in London and the Hove seafront and on the French Riviera, where he led a colourful and largely nocturnal existence.

He also owned an apartment in Versailles, which boasted a collection of antique furniture valued at over 3 million, and a country home near Toulouse.

More than 200 mourners turned out for the peer’s funeral in his home village of Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, in September 2005.

Born Anthony Ashley-Cooper in 1938, he inherited his ancestral title and 9,000-acre Dorset estate at the age of 22, on the death of his grandfather, the ninth earl.

His father died before he could inherit the title, but not before shocking “society” by marrying a chorus girl.

The 10th earl developed a taste for exotic women and high living at an early age - as a teenager at Eton he wrote mockingly of women from his own background, describing them as “round-shouldered, unsophisticated garglers of Champagne”.

After finishing his education at Oxford, the 28-year-old earl married an American divorcee 12 years his senior, who divorced him ten years later because of his adultery.

Lord Shaftesbury then married the daughter of a Swedish ambassador, Christina Cassell - the mother of his sons Anthony and Nicholas.

The couple stayed together until 2000, when, badly affected by the death of his mother, the earl moved out of the ancestral home and began pursuing a bachelor lifestyle.

At the time of his death, he had been living apart from M’Barek, who was his third wife. From hotels of Nice to a horrific discovery in foothills of the Alps

THESE are the key dates and events surrounding the Earl of Shaftesbury’s murder:

2004

3 November: Anthony-Ashley-Cooper, the 66-year-old tenth Earl of Shaftesbury, arrives in Nice. He is expected to holiday in Antibes and return to the UK on 10 November.

4 and 5 November: He contacts friends and family for the last time.

5 November: The earl has a meeting in Cannes with his third wife, Jamila M’Barek, 37. The pair are said to be in the process of divorcing, although there are reports the earl wants a reconciliation.

6 November: He checks into the four-star Noga Hilton in Cannes - the last time he is seen. Police in Sussex and France launch an inquiry after his family and his girlfriend, a 33-year-old hostess from Cannes, raise concerns for his welfare.

18 November: Police make a public appeal for information through local newspaper Nice Matin.

21 December: Police confirm they are treating the hunt for the Earl as a murder investigation.

2005

25 February: Jamila M’Barek is arrested in Cannes and placed under investigation by a judge for murder, a step short of formal charges. Her brother, Mohammed M’Barek, 40, is questioned at his home near Munich, Germany.

5 April: Skeletal remains are discovered in a deep valley in the foothills of the Alps 30 miles outside Nice. DNA tests confirm they are the remains of the earl.

May: Mohammed M’Barek is extradited to France and formally arrested.

September: Mohammed M’Barek admits having killed the earl “accidentally” during a drunken argument. M’Barek denies that the attack was premeditated.

2006

June: An investigative magistrate stages a reconstruction of the earl’s death to help ascertain whether the killing was premeditated.

2007

May: The trial of Jamila and Mohammed M’Barek for the earl’s murder begins in Nice.

(12-10) 02:23 PST TOKYO, Japan (AP) —

Japanese drug maker Eisai Co. said Monday it will buy U.S. biopharmaceutical company MGI Pharma Inc. for $3.9 billion in a move aimed at boosting its cancer drug business and sustain sales growth.

Eisai will buy all outstanding MGI shares for $41.00 each in an all-cash transaction, the two companies said in a statement.

MGI Pharma’s board unanimously approved the deal, which Eisai expects to conclude in the first quarter of 2008, it said.

“Eisai has enormous respect for MGI Pharma’s products, pipeline and people,” the statement quoted Eisai President and CEO Haruo Naito as saying.

“We expect this transaction to allow Eisai to significantly strengthen its oncology business and increase the likelihood of achieving our current strategic plan targets and our future revenue and earnings growth,” he said.

The acquisition price represents a 38.7 percent premium over MGI Pharma’s closing share price of $29.55 on Nov. 28, the last business day prior to the company’s announcement that it was exploring strategic alternatives, the statement said.

The Bloomington, Minnesota-based drug maker spoke with “many of the leading companies in the phamaceutical and biotechnology industry” before agreeing to the Eisai buyout, MGI Chief Executive Lonnie Moulder said, according to the statement.

Faced with the expiration of its U.S. patent on its best-selling Aricept Alzheimer’s disease treatment in 2010, Eisai has been keen to expand its product lineup and research in cancer treatment.

Eisai’s purchase of MGI marks third major acquisition in the oncology area in recent years. Eisai bought Morphotek Inc. of the U.S. in April and four cancer drugs from Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. last year.

Cash-rich Japanese drug makers have been on the hunt for acquisitions, particularly companies with strong antibody and biopharmaceutical technologies, as they try to cushion the impact of expiring patents in the coming years.

The deal was announced after the close of trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where Eisai shares rose 2.1 percent to finish Monday at 4,840 yen ($43.35).

MGI Pharma shares closed trading Friday in New York at $33.45.

ONE year ago today NATO took full control of security across the whole of Afghanistan under the banner of ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, the biggest military venture it has ever undertaken.

New figures released yesterday have revealed that insurgency-related deaths in the country were 55 per cent higher in the first nine months of 2007 compared to last year.

Almost 5,100 people have died in suicide bombings, gun battles, air strikes, and roadside bombs around Afghanistan through the first nine months of the year, according to a tally made by the Associated Press news agency and based on figures from Afghan, US and NATO officials.

The majority of deaths so far this year - 3,544, or 70 per cent of the total - have been militants killed by US and NATO military action or by Afghan forces.

Forty-four members of the British military have lost their lives since NATO took full control of operations on 5 October, 2006.

Nearly five years after allied forces entered Kabul, the battle for Afghanistan remains unfinished.

Operation Pamir, the latest NATO initiative in Afghanistan, was launched this week. Designed to keep the pressure on the Taleban insurgency, the operation represents an escalation of the conflict as NATO attempts to harry the Taleban forces in their winter mountain retreats.

Afghanistan is “a classic glass half-empty, glass half-full story” says Peter Bergen, an Afghan specialist at the New America Foundation.

On the positive side, Osama bin Laden and the Taleban remain hugely unpopular with the Afghan public, as polls show that 90 per cent of Afghans still welcome the West’s intervention.

Additionally, millions of Afghan exiles and refugees have returned home, demonstrating a faith in their country’s future.

That progress, however, has acted as a spur to further violence and much of southern Afghanistan remains a no-go area.

“Suicide attacks have risen sharply this year, and roadside bomb attacks have increased. We launched more operations against the enemy this year, but they have launched operations as well,” said Afghanistan’s defence ministry spokesman, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

What is certain is that British troops, around 7,000 of them, are locked into an increasingly brutal conflict.

Earlier this week the Taleban hanged a 15-year-old boy from an electricity pole in Helmand province.

Alleging that he was a spy they packed his mouth with dollar bills to send a signal to other Afghans that they should consider the consequences of co- operating with NATO forces.

The Kajaki dam project in Helmand province is a recognisable yardstick for NATO progress in the country.

This is where the US government plans its largest project in Afghanistan, the repair and upgrade of the half-century-old dam, which cost 73 million during its first year and will cost up to 245 million in total.

Yet the violence in Helmand has already delayed work for a year.

“It’s a huge undertaking to build and secure a route to get equipment in,'’ Major Tony Borgnis, a company commander with the Royal Anglian Regiment, said this week.

“I cannot see it happening in my tenure,'’ he added. WHAT’S GOING RIGHT

British and US forces committed to Afghanistan for the long haul. The US has a 15-year plan for Afghanistan.

Millions of exiles have returned - a display of faith in their country’s future.

Osama bin Laden and the Taleban are supported by no more than 10 per cent of the population.

NATO troops are winning when battle is joined, making progress in eliminating the Taleban’s battlefield leadership.

Improved infrastructure is helping the Afghan economy to recover and is also making it easier for NATO to confine Taleban insurgents to the mountains.

As US and UK withdraw troops from Iraq, more become available for Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai’s government is relatively stable, although concerns remain about the past of some politicians and links to the drugs trade.

As losses mount for the militants, talks between Mr Karzai and the Taleban become more likely. WHAT’S GOING WRONG

Violence has increased by 30 per cent this year.

Suicide bombings have more than doubled. So too has the use of improvised explosive devices.

The Taleban is learning from insurgents in Iraq.

Mixed performance from NATO troops. Too many countries unwilling to commit troops to actual action.

Afghan economy still heavily dependent upon poppy production - which helps fuel the insurgency. Poppy-eradication efforts have had mixed success.

The Kabul-Kandahar road - the most important in the country - is still too dangerous to travel safely, for example 23 South Korean missionaries were kidnapped along the route this July.

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