A man violently battered his mother-in-law to death and then tried to cover his tracks by setting her body alight, a jury was told.

Mohammed Soboh, 41, is on trial at Lewes Crown Court accused of murdering 72-year-old Pauline Knowles-Samarraie at a bungalow where they lived in Rottingdean.

Soboh was married at the time of the killing to the woman's daughter, Nada, with whom he had three children.

But he had once been married to Mrs Knowles-Samarraie.

The court was told when he was arrested Soboh, who denies murder, claimed he loved Mrs Knowles-Samarraie and described her as an “angel.”

At the start of the trial the jury was told how Mrs Knowles-Samarraie had faced tragedy in her life.

Alan Kent QC, prosecuting, described how she met her first husband, an Iraqi national, when he was studying in the UK in the late 1950s.

She moved to Iraq with him where he became deputy oil minister under Saddam Hussein's regime.

But in the 1980s her husband fell out with Hussein and he and the couple's son, Paul, who was also known as Mazin, were executed while Mrs Knowles-Samarraie and her daughter, Nada, fled to the UK.

She wrote about her dramatic experiences in a book, titled I Never Said Goodbye, published in 2007. But, he said, despite writing the book, she remained a “secretive” about her private life.

Mr Kent said at lunchtime on April 22 last year Soboh rang 999 and claimed he had found his mother-in-law on fire in the kitchen of their home in Grand Crescent.

Mr Kent said Soboh had been alone with his mother-in-law after his wife had driven into Brighton to visit friends.

He said Soboh was “devious” in the way he concocted a story about how he had gone out to catch the bus to Brighton soon after his wife left, but realised he had forgotten his mobile phone and when he returned to the bungalow he found her dead.

She had been repeatedly bludgeoned with a heavy metal lintel, later found by police, stained with her blood, near the bus stop where Soboh had been waiting for a bus. White spirit had been poured over her before she was set alight.

Mr Kent said Soboh, of New England Road, Brighton, had tried to suggest the fire could have started accidentally when Mrs Knowles-Samarraie was cooking her lunch.

In interviews with the police he denied killing her and told how much he loved her.

Mr Kent said: “He repeatedly said her death must have been an accident. He said everybody loved her and nobody would want to hurt her.

“He said she was an angel.”

Mr Kent said Soboh claimed he and his mother-in-law were very close and said she was his rock.

He said his mother-in-law had no enemies and described her as peaceful and loving. He said there was only one person she hated and suggested that was someone from her days in Iraq, who she held responsible for the murders of her husband and son.

Mr Kent said Soboh told the police the answer to her death was in her book.

Mr Kent said the police could not find a motive for the murder.

He said although no one knew what went on behind closed doors; the prosecution believed money could be to blame.

He told the jury that when police searched the bungalow they found a UK passport and American driving licence in the name of Mrs Knowles-Samarraie's death son, Paul, but with photographs of Soboh. He told the police when he was arrested he had married Mrs Knowles-Samarraie in the USA in 1993 for “business” purposes and they divorced three years later.

Mr Kent said there had also been complicated dealings over the bungalow. It was originally owned by Nada after her divorce from her first husband. The property was then sold to Paul Samarraie, who had been dead for years, and a year later sold again to Soboh.

There were thousands of pounds of arrears on the mortgage and eviction proceedings had started.

Mr Kent said Mrs Knowles-Samarraie may have been putting pressure on Soboh to pay back money he owed her.

He said Soboh and his wife were planning to leave the UK to move to Jordan, where his family lived.

Mr Kent said: “What might have happened to Pauline? Perhaps that was the cause of the problem. Certainly something happened in that house that afternoon.”

He said: “There is no way the Crown can say what may have caused an argument between them which led to Pauline's death. The prosecution cannot present a specific motive. But it would appear there was a spontaneous eruption of violence.”

The jury was told the trial started in December last year but was stopped when it became clear it would not finish by the Christmas break.

The trial continues.