Paul Manafort has been branded a “shrewd” liar by prosecutors as they sought to build a picture of a multimillion dollar conspiracy to evade US tax laws by Donald Trump’s former campaign manager during the first day of his criminal trial. Assistant US attorney Uzo Asonye painted a picture of Mr Manafort’s lavish lifestyle, alleging in a Virginia court that money funnelled through 30 offshore accounts was used to buy items including a $ 21,000 watch and a $ 15,000 ostrich jacket, telling the jury that Mr Manafort considered himself “above the law”. “A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him – not tax law, not banking law,” Mr Asonye said as he sketched out the evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in Mr Manafort’s bank fraud and tax evasion trial which relates to political consultancy work undertaken in Ukraine.

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