A husband accused of planning his wife's murder told a court he was drugged and set up by his friend.

Tariq Darwish, 42, is accused of offering pal and bouncer Tim Zahiri £10,000 to kill spouse Wafaa.

A trial has heard how Mr Zahiri, of Worthing, turned the tables on Darwish and police became involved.

Darwish later had two meetings with an undercover cop in which he handed a passport picture of Wafaa to the policeman and described her movements, Inner London Crown Court heard.

Giving evidence Darwish said the truth was that Zahiri was planning to kill his own wife.

Darwish said: "He said we've got to meet the hitman and give him the money up front."

But when Darwish went with Mr Zahiri to a car park in Pease Pottage, he felt strange after drinking a coffee, he said.

"I just felt very relaxed. I felt very weak. I felt one minute hot and one minute cold."

Darwish said he did not remember anything about meeting the 'hitman' at all - or offering anyone £10,000 to kill Wafaa.

When Darwish went to the home he shared at the time with Mr Zahiri he collapsed on the sofa at 10am, the court was told.

When he woke up, Zahiri allegedly told him: "You told him you wanted to kill your wife and you are going to give him money."

Darwish said: "I said, 'You are going to kill your wife, not me'. He then said, 'Everything is going to be alright and not to worry'."

Darwish said he was not happy about what happened but decided to go along to a further meeting at Lancing.

He said: "I wanted to see if Tom really meant what he said. He was supposed to kill his wife, not me mine. I was in a dream."

Earlier he had told the court about his troubled marriage.

He said he feared for his life after his father-in-law threatened to kill him for dishonouring his family name.

He said the relative referred to only as Abdulrahim was a childhood friend of PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Darwish, formerly of Sompting, made a series of claims against his wife, including that she had started beating up her children as well as exposing her body.

He said his father-in-law had even threatened him with 'a bullet between the eyes'.

He said five years after he married Wafaa in 1993 she 'flipped'.

He said: "She started throwing her arms up in the air and showing her body and lifting up her clothes. I couldn't believe a Muslim woman, an Arab woman could do that. She was not the same woman who arrived in the UK in 1993."

He added: "She said she was going to kill the children. She hit them with a frying pan."

Darwish, of Cranberry Avenue, Southampton, denies soliciting to murder his wife between November 22 and 30, 1999.