KEY POINTS:
The start of the Conrad Black trial was delayed yesterday but a passionate opening argument took place outside the courtroom.
A clerk for US District Judge Amy St Eve announced a one-day delay after a lunch break in the trial but did not give a reason.
Earlier Black's lawyers said they were worried that reports of legal settlements by a prosecution witness may have tainted the jury.
St Eve agreed with a request to ask jurors whether they'd heard about the settlements by David Radler, Black's business partner of 35 years and the Government's star witness.
Before proceedings began, Barbara Amiel-Black, wife of the fallen newspaper tycoon, lashed out at journalists covering her husband's trial on an US$84 million ($120 million) fraud.
The former columnist, whose lavish spending habits will form a significant part of the prosecution case, called the assembled media "vermin" and described a Canadian television producer as a "slut".
After being forced to travel down from the courtroom in a packed lift with journalists, Lady Black said: "You journalists are vermin. I used to be a journalist and I didn't doorstep people and I didn't hold my nose in the elevator."
It was a producer from Canadian television broadcaster CBC who appeared to trigger the tirade. Lady Black began by shouting at her "you slut". Alana Black, Lord Black's daughter from his first marriage, giggled as her stepmother addressed the journalists.
In court during the afternoon, Lady Black admitted to friends that she had "lost her cool".
Her husband had been no less combative as he swept past the media on the way into court to hear the start of opening arguments in his fraud trial. "You look like a Vietnam protester," he said to one, queuing up for one of the limited spaces available for the press.
Black faces 14 charges of fraud, racketeering and obstruction of justice, and is accused of funnelling money out of Hollinger International into his own companies in order to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Three other former Hollinger International executives are also on trial.
- INDEPENDENT
