LOS ANGELES  (AFP) – An apparently heavily-drugged Michael Jackson was heard Tuesday talking in a slurred voice to his doctor Conrad Murray, in a recording played at the start of the doctor’s manslaughter trial.

Jackson can hardly be understood in the phone call to Murray a month and a half before his death in 2009, discussing arrangements for his ill-fated series of comeback concerts in London.

Murray is accused of administering an overdose of the powerful sedative propofol to Jackson on a nightly basis for over two months before his death on June 25, 2009.

Making his opening statement, prosecutor David Walgren said the phone conversation from May 10, 2009 showed Murray “evidently observing, maybe listening but recording on his iPhone.”

What this evidence showed was Murray’s knowledge of what “he is doing to Michael Jackson in May 2009, over a month and a half before Michael died as a result of this very treatment,” said the prosecutor.

In the recording, an unrecognizable deep voice slurs remarks — only intelligible thanks to a transcript displayed in the court — about his hopes for his concert tour, including: “He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.”

Walgren said that days after Murray made the recording on his iPhone, he ordered an additional massive batch of propofol and midazolam despite Jackson’s condition.

Some 15.5 liters of propofol was ordered by Murray, the prosecutor said.