(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Dr. Conrad Murray's defence team has asserted that Michael Jackson killed himself.

The claims were made during their opening statements at the beginning of the trial into the death of the King of Pop where his former doctor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Conrad's defense attorney Ed Chernoff said that Michael gave himself the lethal dose of Propofol and caused his own death.

"The scientific evidence will show when Dr. Murray left the room Michael Jackson self administered a dose of Propofol that with the Lorazepam, created a perfect storm in his body that killed him instantly," Ed said in the opening statement.

"On June 25 for 10 hours Michael Jackson was frustrated because he could not sleep, frustrated that his doctor refused to give him a drug he wanted.

"He did an act without his doctor's knowledge, without his doctor's permission, against his doctor's orders. He did an act that caused his own death.

"When Dr. Murray came into the room and touched Michael there was no CPR, no doctor, no paramedic, no machine that was going to revive Michael Jackson. He died so rapidly, so instantly he didn't even have the time to close his eyes."

Michael's mother Katherine, father Joe, and several of his brothers and sisters were in attendance at the Los Angeles court to hear the opening statements.

Dressed all in black, the family held hands sometimes and Katherine was seeing repeatedly dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

Conrad was also seen breaking down in tears during the statement by the defence team.

The prosecution had earlier played a voice recording of Michael taken on May 10 2009 that Conrad had taken on his iPhone.

The singer's voice was slurred and he was apparently under the influence of "unknown agents".

The Prosecution team claimed that Conrad knew Michael's state and what he was doing to the singer by giving him the anesthetic to help him sleep which was a drug that was only supposed to have been used to put a patient under during operations.

Michael is heard saying that he wants his fans to leave his This Is It Tour that he had been preparing for saying, "I've never seen nothing like this in my life."

Just six weeks later he died at the age of 50. (C) Cover Media