Property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten has been barred by the High Court from defending a £6 million claim against him.

Mr Justice Lightman said Mr Hoogstraten's responsibility for murdering business rival Mohammed Raja, who had been suing him, had forced him to take the "draconian" step of striking out the tycoon's defence.

That leaves Mr Hoogstraten liable in the multi-million pound claim by Mr Raja's heirs, plus more than £1.5 million in legal costs.

But a defiant Mr Hoog- straten, who once said in a television interview he was worth more than £100 million and who at one stage owned more than 400 homes in Brighton and Hove, told the judge he would "not pay a penny".

The multi-millionaire had been cleared in the criminal courts of killing Mr Raja but in an action for £6m in civil damages, launched on behalf of Mr Raja's family and estate, Mr Justice Lightman ruled that Mr Hoogstraten, 60, had recruited two "highly dangerous thugs" to murder Mr Raja. He said he had done this in order to halt the lawsuit Mr Raja was bringing against him over a business deal.

Mr Raja, 62, was stabbed and shot after answering the door at his home in Sutton, south London, on July 2, 1999. His killers, Robert Knapp and David Crole, are serving life for murder.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Lightman ruled in favour of an application by the Raja family to debar Mr Hoogstraten from defending the action because of his conduct.

He said: "No greater challenge to the administration of justice and no greater perversion of the course of justice can be conceived than the murder of the opposing party to obtain an advantage in litigation.

"It is conduct which no court, with its necessary concern for the administration of justice, can tolerate."

Mr Hoogstraten, who uses the Courtlands Hotel in Hove as his UK base, was ordered to pay a preliminary £282,000 costs to the Raja solicitors within two weeks.

He told the judge: "You may make an order for payment on account but as I have stated publicly and previously, they are not going to get a penny."

There will be a further hearing in two weeks to decide on the level of damages Mr Hoogstraten will pay and whether a court order freezing his assets should continue.

There will also be further inquiries into Mr Hoogstraten's assets after he told the court he had no funds and no interest in any companies.

Mr Hoogstraten said he would need time to read the judgment before deciding whether to launch an appeal.

The Raja family's barrister, Peter Irvin, said: "Mr Hoogstraten's game is to run up as much in costs as possible against my client's estate.

"He appeals everything he can and makes applications to the courts every time he can, running up huge costs which we simply do not get back.

"His lifestyle has not been inhibited by these proceedings against him. He has carried on as before from his headquarters in Zimbabwe."