Billionaire Tetra Pak Heir Charged After Death of Wife

Billionaire Tetra Pak Heir Charged After Death of Wife

The heir to the Tetra Pak fortune, billionaire Hans Kristian Rausing, was charged on Tuesday with obstruction of the lawful and decent burial of his US-born wife Eva, British police announced.

Police discovered the dead body of Eva Rausing at the couple's home in London's upscale Belgravia district last week after they detained her husband over drugs charges.

Rausing will appear in custody at West London Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, police said.

At the opening of an inquest into her death on Friday, Scotland Yard detective Sharon Marman said Hans Kristian Rausing, 49, was under medical supervision and detectives had been unable to interview him.

Marman said police had stopped Hans Kristian Rausing's car in south London because they suspected he was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they discovered a small amount of drugs.

"Authority was granted to search the home address... and during the course of that search officers discovered the apparently lifeless body of a female in one of the bedrooms," she said.

A post-mortem examination proved inconclusive and further test results are awaited, Marman said.

The Rausing family, headed by Rausing's father Hans, is the 12th richest in Britain, worth £4.3 billion ($6.7 billion, 5.4 billion euros), according to The Sunday Times newspaper's Rich List 2012.

Eva and Hans Kristian Rausing were active philanthropists and enjoyed an affluent lifestyle, spending much of their time in their 11-bedroom mansion in Barbados -- but had well-publicised problems with drugs.

The couple, who have four teenage children, first met at a US addiction clinic and were charged in 2008 after Eva tried to take crack cocaine and heroin into a function at the US embassy in London.

Posted by James Fried on Thursday July 19 2012, 10:06 AM EDT. Ref: Reuters. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0