Defiant Conrad Black Calls Himself a 'Freedom Fighter'

By: E&P Staff In a Canadian television interview scheduled for broadcast Monday night, deposed newspaper baron Conrad Black calls himself a "freedom fighter" who will never take a plea bargain on the multiple charges of criminal fraud he faces in U.S. court, Reuters reported.

According to the report, Black declares in the interview that he is an innocent living "a horrible nightmare scenario" while awaiting trial next March on charges he and other key executives looted millions from Hollinger International Inc., the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times that has since renamed itself Sun-Times Media Group.

"The chances of my committing a crime are less than zero and it is a horrible nightmare scenario for someone who is a law-abiding person ... to be attacked as violently as I have, not only with these charges but with the ancillary efforts to restrict my ability to defend myself," Black says in the interview to be aired by the TVO television channel.

"There will be absolutely no discussion of any plea bargain," Reuters quoted Black as saying in the interview. "I committed no offense and there will be no discussion of any such thing."

Black said he is confident he will be acquitted. "I have settled into my new life as a freedom fighter," he says in the TVO interview. "It's very interesting and it's quite stimulating, in a way, but it is an ordeal."

In another development in the case, U.S. prosecutors in court documents said that lawyers and accounts who worked for Hollinger International while Black and others were allegedly skimming money from the company will testify that "they had no idea" that alleged improper non-compete agreements were "simply sham agreements requested by the defendants to funnel bonus compensation into (their) pockets."

The Canadian law firm, Torys LLP agreed last year to pay $30.3 million to settle claims that it improperly advised Hollinger about the payments. The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing by the Toronto firm.