Hong Kong 'milkshake' case appeal

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The final appeal has begun in Hong Kong of a US woman convicted for the murder of her banker husband in 2003 after lacing his strawberry milkshake.

Nancy Kissel, 45, was jailed for life for putting sedatives in her husband Robert's drink and bludgeoning him to death with an ornament.

Her defence team is challenging the conviction in Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal.

They say prosecutors breached evidence rules during her trial.

Three days have been scheduled for the hearing.

At the 2005 trial, the court heard tales of high living, adultery, cocaine abuse, violent arguments, wealth, greed and unhappiness.

'New lover'

The murder was discovered due to the stench from the rolled up carpet in a storage room at the luxury Parkview apartments complex on Hong Kong island.

Mrs Kissel had apparently asked maintenance men to come and take the carpet away.

Revelations at the original trial about the lifestyle of some members of the territory's wealthy expatriate elite gripped the public imagination for weeks.

Mrs Kissel lost an appeal in 2008 based on her claim that she acted in self defence as her husband was threatening her with a baseball bat. Her lawyers had argued that the judge had defined the concept of self-defence too narrowly.

But at the trial prosecutors had argued that she planned the murder due to her uncontrolled passion for a new lover, a TV repairman in the US, deliberately creating an atmosphere of violence in the home.

They alleged that Mrs Kissel stood to gain up to $18m (£11m) in life insurance payouts from her husband's death.