KEY POINTS:
Conrad Black, the disgraced media baron and former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, has offered another belligerent commentary on the United States legal system as he prepares to hear how much time he must serve in jail.
With his sentencing on three counts of fraud and one of
obstruction of justice less than 10 days away, Black described the case against him as a "persecution", a "war of attrition" and even as a boxing match.
"I held my corner quite well," he said in his first British media appearance since being found guilty in July.
US prosecutors are putting the finishing touches to their argument that Black should serve up to 24 years in prison - that would effectively jail the 63-year-old for the rest of his life.
They must decide whether to include the peer's unrepentant public statements - and his characterisation of prosecutors as "Nazis" - before the judge, Amy St Eve, at the Chicago hearing on December 10.
A confidential pre-sentence report argued that he should serve closer to four years.
Maintaining his innocence on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Black disagreed that there was a strong likelihood he would go to prison.
"They started with 16 counts in the American manner of throwing all the spaghetti against the wall.
"They had to drop three before it went to the jury, and the jury pitched nine," he said.
"I was acquitted on three-quarters of the counts and we go on to the higher court. This story isn't over."
Black's newspaper empire, controlled through a US-listed company, Hollinger International, was once the third-largest in the English-speaking world.
He was ousted as chairman in 2004 after an investigation by shareholder representatives found he and his associates had used the company to fund a lavish lifestyle and looted it of US$400 million ($525 million).
A jury found that between US$6 million and US$32 million of that money was taken in outright fraud. How much exactly will be debated at the sentencing hearing.
"I'm an innocent man and I'm fighting for my life," he said.
"This theory that it's a great rise and fall story, or some sort of Shakespeare or Greek tragedy, that I was misled by my wife, lived to extravagance, it's all nonsense."
- Independent
