Black still fighting despite threat of prison

Lord Black of Crossharbour, the disgraced media baron and former proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, has offered another burst of belligerent commentary on the US 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 UK 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, a term 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 10 Dec-ember. 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, Holl-inger 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 that he and his associates had used Hollinger as if it were a personal piggy bank, using the company to fund his lavish lifestyle and looting it of $400m (195m). A jury found that between $6m and $32m of that money was taken in outright fraud. How much exactly will be debated at the sentencing hearing.

About 100 friends and former colleagues have written letters in support of the peer, which will also be considered by Judge Amy St Eve. "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."