Jamila M'Barek

Jamila Ashley-Cooper, Dowager Countess of Shaftesbury (née M'Barek), is the French-born Tunisian widow and murderer of the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, a British peer, and was imprisoned for having paid her brother to murder her husband.

Background Born circa 1961, she was one of seven children born in Lens, Pas-de-Calais, France, to immigrant parents, a Tunisian mother and a Moroccan father. The children were abused by their violent and alcoholic father who worked as a miner.

When Jamila M'Barek was six years old, her mother fled with her and her six siblings to Nabeul, Tunisia, in order to escape from their abusive father. M'Barek spent most of her childhood there. Dutch businessman Raf Schouten, by whom she had two children. Catherine Gurtler, a former madam from Paris who sent M'Barek to Lord Shaftesbury, later testified that she had asked for rich clients and she "saw plenty of big-name celebrities during her days working for the agency". According to Gurtler, she hoped to settle down with an affluent and famous man.

Marriage to Lord Shaftesbury M'Barek and Lord Shaftesbury were married at Hilversum in the Netherlands on 5 November 2002. The wedding was first scheduled for spring 2002, but Shaftesbury "felt something was not right".

M'Barek, by this point titled Countess of Shaftesbury, claimed to be pregnant with his child; Shaftesbury included her in his will, naming her the heir of his properties in Ireland and France, but a child was never born to the couple.

By April 2004, Lord Shaftesbury had started a new relationship with Nadia Orche, a young mother of two children who has been described as a "club hostess from Cannes" and a "Moroccan prostitute". According to Orche, Lord Shaftesbury was planning to marry her after getting a divorce from his third wife.

Lord and Lady Shaftesbury separated in April 2004 and divorce proceedings were set in motion. By that time, he had given her a windmill in the Gers region of southwestern France, the €700,000 duplex in a villa in Cannes, which included staff, a car, and a monthly allowance, ranging between €7,500 and €10,000. Lord Shaftesbury wanted to end this arrangement and the marriage so he could marry Orche. While Shaftesbury was speaking with his wife, a fight broke out between him and his brother-in-law, Mohammed M'Barek. Shaftesbury died during the fight when his brother-in-law strangled him, breaking his neck.

Confession and arrest

In February 2005, Lady Shaftesbury was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she had an emotional breakdown and began confessing to her involvement in her husband's death. When interviewed by police, she claimed that Shaftesbury had been beaten to death by her brother during a fight at her flat in Cannes.

According to Lady Shaftesbury, her brother placed her husband's body in the boot of his BMW and left it in an unknown place. She was arrested on 25 February 2005 and her brother was arrested by German police the following day at his home in Munich. He was later extradited to France, continuing to deny his involvement and knowledge of the location of Lord Shaftesbury's body.

In June 2006, pre-trial proceedings began in Grasse. Lady Shaftesbury told the court that she was not with her brother when he disposed of the body. She stated that she had never been to the site and claimed that she had no role in the murder other than helping her brother, under duress, load the body into his car. She told investigators, "I did not want him to die. I just wanted my brother to intimidate him so that he would continue to pay me my allowance. But he didn't want to have anything to do with it, so a violent quarrel broke out. I left the room because I could not stand to see what was happening".

Trial

On 22 May 2007, the trial of Jamila, Countess of Shaftesbury, and her brother, Mohammed M'Barek, opened at the Palais de Justice in Nice, two-and-a-half years after the death of the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury. The presiding judge of the jury trial was Nicole Besset, with Jean-Louis Moreau serving as the state prosecutor. The Countess of Shaftesbury was represented in court by her attorney, Franck De Vita.

A forensic examination of the skeletal remains revealed injuries, including a broken ankle and a double fracture to the larynx, which indicated strangulation. At times, both Lady Shaftesbury and her brother had admitted their involvement in the death of Lord Shaftesbury, and the French authorities decided to charge both her and her brother with the crime of premeditated murder. After marrying Lord Shaftesbury, she faced "looming financial disaster" in the event of a divorce and set out "consciously and without constraint, to accomplish his assassination".

There was blood on the floor. I did not know if it was my brother or my husband's blood. My brother could not believe my husband was dead.

In her defence, she denied any financial motive in wishing her husband dead and claimed that she had no need of his fortune, stating that she had "always been prosperous". Lady Shaftesbury vowed revenge, additionally stating, "I was always loyal to the men who were close to me, but they did not want to know me when I was facing the biggest trial of my life. Most were too scared to appear because they are married or have steady girlfriends but with their help I could have been cleared".

The wiretap uncovered the truth regarding her visit to the remote spot where her husband's body was found. This was supported when downloaded records from the GPS tracking device in her cellphone detailed the presence of her cellphone there, two days before Lord Shaftesbury's death.