Conrad Black and Iranian Women's Lib: strange bedfellows

As my former boss Conrad Black sits on his Palm Beach terrace taking his daily tipple of "good French white wine", he is unlikely to cast his thoughts in the direction of Teheran and Delaram Ali.

Why should he? Lord Black of Crossharbour, as he styles himself in memory of the Isle of Dogs, to which he moved the Daily Telegraph 20 years ago, is more preoccupied by what he regards as one monstrous injustice - his own - to worry about another faced by a young woman in a far off land.

On Nov 30, he will be sentenced for fraud and obstruction of justice, recognisable crimes in any sane jurisdiction. Ali (pictured below) has already been condemned and faces 10 lashes and 30 months in jail for the non-crime of protesting peacefully - check that last link; it takes you to a remarkable photo essay - in favour of women's equality.

There is no true link, of course. But I have followed the Ali case because I now live in the Gulf, a whole lot nearer Iran than Florida, while my natural fascination with the Black trial has been deepened by conversations with new Canadian colleagues who also once worked for him.

And I find myself feeling sympathy for them both.

I have no real interest to declare. When Black owned the Telegraph, I was a mere reporter. He seemed a decent and successful proprietor and it is beyond reasonable doubt that the newspaper his regime produced was vastly superior to that of today. But we met only once, and I have only a couple of anecdotes worth passing on.


Unlikely scenario
Picture:HawleyB For some reason, I was among lowly hacks invited to join Black in the executive dining suite for lunch. Discussion turned to the woeful lack of facilities to eat, drink or shop on the Isle of Dogs.
"But we are pioneers," our leader roared. "Before you know it, you'll have everything here that you had in Fleet Street."

Rashly, I failed to stop myself exclaiming: "And it'll still be a lousy place to run a national newspaper."

"My, you're a defeatist," came the reply. A little later, he asked about the jolly libel trial involving two editors, Andrew Neil and Peregrine Worsthorne, the first allegedly representing Vulgar New England and the second Stuffy Old England. I had been covering the case and since Worsthorne edited the Sunday Telegraph, Black wanted to know the likely outcome.

"We'll lose," I said in my second career-threatening contribution to the luncheon conversation. "But if it's any consolation, the damages will be nominal." I was proved right - Neil collecting all of £1,000, a pathetic sum by the obscene standards of English libel awards - but it was hardly the answer the owner had wanted to hear. "You know, you really are doubly defeatist," was all he could think to say.

Afterwards, our scholarly deputy editor, Andrew Hutchinson, who also attended the lunch, told us Black had remarked on the staggering ingratitude of occupants of the editorial floor. As he strode through the office, no one had approached to thank him for a recent handout of share options.

"Please do not worry," Andrew had assured him. "All are indeed most grateful. However, it simply is not the done thing for a reporter or sub-editor to be seen ingratiating himself with the proprietor."

The lunch produced no known casualties. Black continued to preside over a profitable newspaper; journalism there continued to flourish. This does not excuse subsequent financial irregularities. If he went on to defraud his companies of millions, he deserves to be punished.

But he no more deserves to be treated as a car bomber than poor Ali deserves to be flogged. I have no wish to go behind the verdict of the jury and if he is guilty, he probably couldn't complain if he received the other part of her sentence: 30 months in the slammer. American justice has its own vicious streak, however, and prosecutors are demanding 19-24 years' imprisonment.
At least there is hope for the brave and smart Miss Ali. The Iranian courts are reviewing her case for the third time and we must hope that they will belatedly gain a sense of proportion and spare her both components of a savage judgment.

In the country that added the dreadful Genarlow Wilson affair to the history of miscarriages of justice, Conrad Black would be unwise as a convicted fraudster to count on receiving much clemency from Judge Amy St Eve.