Lawyers defending Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray, who's on trial for involuntary manslaughter, have called their first witnesses.
The BBC reports they will have to counter four weeks of damaging allegations from those who testified for the prosecution, which have presented Dr Murray as inept and of acting unethically and with gross negligence by using a hospital-only anaesthetic, propofol, as a sleeping drug.
Among the first witnesses was Dr Allan Metzger, a friend of Jackson's for over two decades, who testified that Jackson had requested anaesthetics from him as a sleep aid.
During their cross-examination, prosecutors used the same testimony to show that other medical professionals rejected using intravenous or oral anaesthetics to help Jackson sleep, the BBC says.
