POTSDAM - A German court watched a police videotape on Tuesday that showed a former politician telling a hitman he would not hand over cash without proof that his wife had been killed.

In one of the country's most bizarre criminal cases in years, former Social Democrat Jochen Wolf is accused of hiring a hitman in a bungled attempt to murder his wife to avenge the suicide of his Russian mistress.

Wolf, 60, sat impassively as Potsdam State Court saw a 20-minute video from last July in which he tells the assassin, who was cooperating with police, he would not pay the 10,000 marks ($4,500) promised until he had proof his wife was dead.

"I have been messed around three times already and this is the last time", Wolf told the assassin.

"Once there is an official confirmation, I will pay," Wolf told the killer, according to a transcript of the encounter at Berlin's Zoo railway station read by Judge Horst Barteldes.

Wolf, a disgraced ex-construction minister in the eastern state of Brandenburg, faces charges of attempting to incite murder and could face up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

Wolf has declined to make any plea in the first two of 10 scheduled trial dates, although he told police in a statement soon after his arrest he had given 5,000 marks as a down payment for the 15,000-mark job.

He said he had not heard anything from the hitman for six months before his arrest, saying he was alarmed when the assassin got back in touch because he no longer wanted anything to do with the assignment.

Wearing a red sweater and faded blue jeans, Wolf showed no emotion at the trial. He has spent the last six months in prison and tried to commit suicide last summer.

In an August interview with an eastern German magazine, Wolf had said his world fell apart in 1998 when his mistress, a 23-year-old Russian model named Oksana Kusnezowa shot herself after a confrontation with his wife, Ursula.

His troubles began in the early 1990s when he was forced to resign as construction minister over a property scandal. He met the young Russian on a business trip in 1995, when she was working as an interpreter.

Judge Barteldes read to the court a signed statement Wolf gave to police after he was arrested.

"I did not have any concrete idea of how the job would be finished off," Wolf said in the statement. "When the expected event did not happen I demanded my 5,000 marks back, but I only got evasive answers."

Wolf had told police that he had lost contact with the assassin and was surprised when the man the court identified as Ralf Muehlbauer called him last summer. Muehlbauer was at that point working with police and the calls were tape-recorded.

"I was surprised and disturbed because I didn't want to have anything to do with the assignment anymore," Wolf said in the statement. "But Muehlbauer insisted on the meeting. I agreed because I was afraid he might report me and because I was afraid he might resort to using violence against me."

Wolf told Muehlbauer to meet him in front of a tie shop in the central Zoo train station later that evening. As soon as Wolf asked for "evidence" police swooped and arrested him. Nampa-Reuters