Free Republic

Her name is Lily Safra... The daughter of a British railway engineer, Lily's ascent from humble origins to fabulous wealth had been little short of dazzling. By the late Nineties, her husband was presiding over a £3 billion fortune - all of which passed to Lily alone when, on the morning of December 3, 1999, Edmond died in a fire, apparently succumbing to fumes in the property's highly reinforced panic room.... Four days later, in a tearful confession, one of Edmond's full-time nursing staff, 41-year-old Ted Maher, admitted to lighting the fire in a doomed bid to stage a heroic...

AN AMERICAN nurse will go on trial in Monaco today charged with the arson attack that triggered a bizarre chain of events culminating in the death of one of the world’s wealthiest bankers, Edmond Safra, in 1999. The jury at the biggest criminal case held in the Principality will be told that Safra was killed by a combination of his own fear, official bungling and the tortured projects hatched by his nurse, Ted Maher. Mr Maher, 44, the sole defendant, is accused of arson with attempt to harm and faces a 20-year prison sentence if found guilty. Among the civil...