A Perthshire chef repeatedly denied stabbing his “princess” to death during a tearful police interview, a murder trial heard.
Mohammed Ali Abboud told detectives his former partner Agniesszka Szefler attacked him with a knife, “swinging like mad” before tripping and falling on the blade in his back garden during a struggle.
Asked if he had killed Miss Szefler, Abboud replied: “How could I? That’s my baby. I’ve never had an argument with her.”
Abboud, 57, denies murdering the 27-year-old Polish teacher at Bridge of Earn’s Horsemill Place and has lodged a special defence of self defence.
DC David Budd, 36, was played DVDs of three police interviews he and a colleague conducted with Abboud after he was detained.
Abboud told the detective he drove Miss Szefler to his house after collecting her from Edinburgh Airport.
He waited while she picked up boxes from a friend in Perth so she could pack belongings left at his home.
At the house, Abboud said Miss Szefler became angry when a mobile phone rang and he had asked if it was her friend.
Abboud said: “She says ‘you’re gonna pay for that’”
Abboud told Mr Budd, that Miss Szefler had then attacked him with a kitchen knife and he had tried to defend himself by grabbing it and her arm.
“She was swinging like mad,” he said.
“I was scared to death. I thought she had gone mad.”
Abboud said that during the struggle, he had opened the back door and Miss Szefler had tripped and fallen onto the knife in the garden.
Mr Budd said: “I’m not having it. She had multiple injuries on her back and torso. You have very minor wounds “Are you going to tell us what happened in the house?”
Abboud replied: “We had a struggle, she pulled the knife and that’s the whole thing.”
Mr Budd said: “She stabbed herself in the back? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Abboud said: “I don’t know, we twisted around,”
Mr Budd said: “How did you describe her? Your princess, the love of your life. Give her a bit of respect and tell us what happened.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Abboud replied. “I’m not telling lies.”
Abboud denies biting Miss Szefler repeatedly on the body, striking her repeatedly on the body with a knife or similar instrument, pursuing and straddling her, and again striking her repeatedly with a knife or similar instrument on January 23 at Horsemill Place, Bridge of Earn.
Abboud is then alleged to have washed blood from the knife and placed it under Miss Szefler’s body to give the appearance she had fallen on it.
It is then alleged that Abboud repeatedly struck himself on the body with a knife to give the appearance that he had been assaulted by Miss Szefler.
The trial at the High Court in Edinburgh before Lord Uist continues.
See Saturday’s Courier for more on this story.