Nisha's 'perfect' husband was leading a double life

It was an Oscar-worthy performance that helped him almost get away with murder.

Fadi Nasri used manipulation and charm to fool the police and even tried to lure his friends into the death plot he arranged for his wife.

But detectives finally discovered the perfect husband was leading a double life and had several motives for killing his wife, including wanting to cash in on her £350,000 life insurance policy and £17,000 home insurance.

Speaking exclusively to the Standard, Chris Mills, a friend of Mr Nasri, said he tried to trick him into helping him with an alibi the night Nisha Patel-Nasri was killed. He said: "He's just pure evil. What he did to Nisha was deeply planned." Mr Mills, 39, said he bumped into Nasri at an Indian takeaway at 9.30 on the evening of the stabbing. Nasri invited him and his partner to his house.

After Mr Mills declined, Nasri phoned his home asking his girlfriend to persuade him.

She also turned him down but he called the house incessantly. Mr Mills said: "It was odd, he just kept calling. He seemed a bit frantic, a bit panicked. He wouldn't take no for an answer."

In fact, that night Nasri had organised the murder of his wife by heroin dealer Rodger Leslie and the actual killer, nightclub bouncer Jason Jones.

Mr Mills, a father-of-four from Wembley, met Nasri three years ago and they had become friends. He added: "It was only after he was charged with Nisha's murder it dawned on me that me and my partner were part of his plan ... to make his alibi even stronger. If we'd gone, he and I probably would have gone to play snooker and I'd have left my partner in the house with Nisha. Perhaps she'd have been killed too."

Mr Mills said he had been unaware that Nasri, 34, had been having an affair with Lithuanian prostitute Laura Mockiene while his wife was still alive.

He said: "All of a sudden, she was with him all the time. He began complaining the police were on his back a lot, he was panicking. At that time he was on holiday a lot. I told him he was not acting like a man who had just lost his wife."

Nasri was born in Beirut and arrived in the UK at the age of seven. In a chilling echo, his divorced father Farouk was also accused of killing his own lover.

The 53-year-old used bedsheets to hang himself while on remand at Leicester Prison in 2000, charged with murdering Jennifer Elverson, 27, and her son, Ben, seven.

Three years later, in east Finchley, Nasri met his future wife and they were engaged within months. However, he had a ruthless side. As well as a string of previous convictions he had been jailed for driving at a police officer.

In early 2006 he began an affair with Ms Mockiene, who was working at a brothel in Victoria. The pair went on holidays to Egypt and Romania and met in hotels.

While his wife Nisha worked ceaselessly he would "doss around the house". Mrs Patel-Nasri's brother, Katen Patel, said that Nasri could produce crocodile tears at will.

He tried the trick in an attempt to hoodwink the jury but they refused to believe him, said Mr Patel, 35, an ITV programme scheduler.

He said: "If you leave your eyes open for a minute or so they automatically start watering, once they start watering then you start blinking and the tears start to drop.

"He did the same thing in the dock, I was watching his face and he wouldn't blink. You could see tears but they were not real." Nasri had put on a display of tears for the TV cameras early in the investigation.

In an emotional appeal for information after his wife's death he said: "No one else could touch her. She was extremely hard working, bubbly and always on the go.

"She was a helpful and forgiving woman who was proud to wear a police uniform. I was very proud of her and when she said she wanted to do it (become a Special Constable) I encouraged her but I had my worries for her safety."

He also gave a moving eulogy at her funeral after carrying her coffin.

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola of the Met's Specialist Crime Directorate said that it was the most complex of the 30 murders he had investigated, describing Nasri as "calculating" and able to manipulate many people.