Stanford trial yet to begin

TEXAS (CMC):

The opening statements in the long-awaited trial of disgraced Texan billionaire, Allen Stanford, was due to begin late yesterday after a district judge quizzed 80 jurors in a case that has been ranked the second-largest Ponzi scheme in United States history.

Stanford's attorneys have said they expect him to testify during the trial that Justice David Hittner said could last up to six weeks.

Court officials said that 14 jurors will be selected, including two alternatives. The alternatives won't learn who they are until the evidence has been presented and deliberations are about to begin.

Stanford, 61, was indicted more than two and a half years ago, after US prosecutors said he "obtained CD proceeds under false pretences", using his Antigua-based bank to conduct a Ponzi scheme worth seven billion US dollars.

But his lawyers say they'll use thousands of bank and business records to show jurors the financier never intended to defraud anyone. They claim no investor lost money until the government stepped in and seized the businesses.

The trial had been delayed for numerous reasons, including the fact that he had to be treated at a prison hospital for an addiction to an anti-anxiety drug.

The former billionaire's legal team argued he was incapable of giving evidence due to amnesia caused by a prison beating in 2009 and the effects of medication he has been taking since then to combat anxiety, but Stanford was deemed fit to stand trial despite claiming that he could not remember anything from before the attack.