Jackson doctor protests his innocence in internet video

Dr Conrad Murray, the doctor who treated Michael Jackson on the day he died and is at the centre of a police investigation into the singer's death, has spoken publicly for the first time.

Murray recorded the brief message, originally posted on entertainment website TMZ and now on YouTube, to protest his innocence and to reassure friends and family that was okay. "Because of all that is going on, I am afraid to return phone calls or use my email. Therefore I recorded this video to let you know I have been receiving your messages."

The doctor, who is originally from Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago in the Caribbean, added: "I told the truth and I have faith that the truth will prevail."

Three weeks ago police raided the physician's offices and his Las Vegas home, seizing mobile phones and a computer hard drive as part of their investigation. Murray has told police that he was asleep when Jackson was given the fatal dose of drugs shortly before he died on June 25.

Meanwhile Jackson's mother Katherine Jackson could take Dr Murray to court over the singer's death. Her lawyer, Burt Levitch said that she may file a wrongful death lawsuit for at least $100m against the physician. 'The possibility of a wrongful death action has been floated... no decision has been finalised," Levitch said on Tuesday. "Dr Murray's name has been floated because he is under investigation."

In other Michael Jackson news:

♦ The King of Pop will be buried on what would have been his 51st birthday, a spokesman for the family said today. Jackson will be buried at the Forest Lawn memorial park in California on August 29. The ceremony will be limited to family and close friends.

♦ The FBI held a 591-page file on Michael Jackson, a San Franciso blogger has discovered. Michael Petrelis, who writes the 'Petrelis File' and describes himself as a 'veteran gay and Aids human rights advocate', submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for any records they held on Jackson. "I expected the agency would reply saying they didn't locate any such records, or that there were only a handful on pages on the late entertainer. I was wrong." The file is available from the FBI for $49.10, which the Feds call a 'duplication fee'.

♦ A portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol has fetched more than $1m at auction in New York. The same 1984 pop art painting had sold for $278,500 at a Sotheby's auction in New York in mid-May, just over a month before Jackson's death on June 25. The owner of the Vered Art Gallery, in Long Island, Janet Lehr, said she sold the painting to a "speculator". In recent years other Warhol portraits of Jackson have found no buyers, including one put up for auction in London last year. ·