The trial of a French rock star accused of beating his film star girlfriend to death is due to open in Lithuania on Tuesday.

More than 200 mostly French reporters are in Vilnius, the capital, to cover the proceedings against 39-year-old Bertrand Cantat, lead singer of France's top-selling rock band, Noir Desir, or Black Desire.

He is charged with killing 41-year-old French actress Marie Trintignant in a Vilnius hotel room last July.

The multi-millionaire singer, held in the tsarist-era Lukiskes Prison since his arrest eight months ago, is expected to plead not guilty. If the three-judge panel at the Vilnius District Court convicts Cantat of manslaughter, he faces a maximum 15 year jail sentence.

A verdict and sentence in the trial -- one of the highest profile cases ever held in the Baltic country -- could be handed down this week, defence lawyer Leonas Pirginijus Papirtis said.

A request by Cantat to be tried in France was denied last year by Lithuanian authorities, who would have seen any such move as an admission that justice can't be properly served here.

Cantat's friends say they worry about the prospect of him spending years in decrepit prisons in Lithuania, which, while upgraded since the Baltic state regained independence during the 1991 Soviet collapse, remain overcrowded and poorly kept compared to French jails.

The case has gripped and horrified France, where the love affair between the two artists was once the focus of public fascination. Her death has since prompted public soul searching about violence against women and whether French society does enough to prevent such abuse.

Many relatives, fans and friends have rallied to the singer-poet's defence.

The one-time champion of left-wing causes is reviled by others. His house in south-western France was recently destroyed by fire in mysterious circumstances, with many believing it was a revenge attack for Trintignant's death.