Conrad Black to be released amid doubts over conviction

MEDIA mogul and former publisher of the Daily Telegraph Conrad Black is to be released from prison on bail.

Black and three other executives from Hollinger International were convicted in July 2007 of swindling company shareholders out of $6.1 million (4m).

But the fraud conviction has now been called into question - following a Supreme Court decision on the "honest services" law, leading to a change in the way fraud is defined in the US.

The terms of bail will be determined by trial judge Amy St Eve of the US District Court in Chicago - according to the order of the appeals panel.

Canadian-born Black has served more than two years of a six-and-a-half-year sentence for fraud. Before his conviction his business interests made him the third biggest media mogul in the world. As well as owning the Telegraph, he had a controlling interest in the Chicago Sun Times, Jerusalem Post, National Post (Canada), and hundreds of community newspapers in North America.

The former media baron is currently housed at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. Black's appeal lawyer, Miguel Estrada, said the former media baron had not yet been released.