Former media mogul Conrad Black Québec attacked a BBC interviewer threatening to smash his face!
Black, former owner of Quebec City's Le Soleil, Trois-Rivières' Le Nouvelliste, La Tribune de Sherbrooke and Ottawa's Le Droit, was ready to take a run at investigative journalist Jeremy Paxman BBC who called him a ‘convicted criminal.'
Black did not like that one bit. He still keeps saying he was innocent and the judge got it all wrong and persecuted him "half to death."
Black told Paxman that he was proud to be able to take part in the interview "without getting up and smashing your face."
The conversation heated up when Paxman called Black a convicted criminal. Black emerged from a U.S. prison this year after 42 months for fraud and obstruction of justice.
"You're a priggish, gullible, British fool to take seriously the horrible American justice system that any Englishman knows is a scandal," Black replied in full anger.
He insisted he was "falsely accused, wrongly convicted, and finally," is "almost entirely justified" not to have lost his mind, or become irrational.
Black added that he is " still capable of taking part in a discussion with Paxman "without getting up and smashing your face which is what most people would do if they had experienced what I experienced."
"Well, go ahead," said Paxman.
"No, I do not believe in violence," Black said.
Black was sentenced to prison in 2007 after a four-month trial that ended with his conviction related to his business dealings when he headed the Hollinger Inc. newspaper chain.
He appealed the decision, and two charges of fraud were dismissed and his sentence reduced to 42 months. He served 37 months an appeared to have lost none of his combative, accusatory spirit.
