Court ordered to reopen Conrad Black conviction

A US appeals court has been told to look again at the convictions of Conrad Black, the newspaper tycoon jailed for fraud.

The US Supreme Court set aside yesterday the convictions of Black and two ex-colleagues for defrauding shareholders of one-time newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International.

The justices sent the case back to a US appeals court in Chicago, saying they had not used the law correctly. The conviction remains in place, however.

It will now be down to the appeals courts to decide whether to overturn the conviction.

Canadian-born Black has been in prison since March 2008, when he began serving a six-and-a-half sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice.

A jury in Chicago found the three executives guilty of fraud involving $5.5 million (€4.4m) they received from a Hollinger subsidiary.

Hollinger was once the world’s third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers.

A US court of appeals upheld the convictions, but the Supreme Court set aside that ruling. At issue is a 28-word law adopted in 1988 making it illegal for public officials and executives to commit fraud by depriving those they work for of the right to “honest services.” Critics say the law is being used to turn political and business mistakes into crimes.