Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

After the tsunami of reports last Friday summarizing Fred Creasey’s dubious performance on the stand when faced with evidence that in fact he did know about the non-competes and that he’d overcharged the company for Conrad’s now near-mythic flight to Bora-Bora, the weekend was relatively quiet.

There were reports that Judge St. Eve is holding fast to her ruling barring media from revealing the identities of the jurors. This morning, Paul Waldie reports on the coming testimony of lawyers Darren Sukonick and Beth DeMerchant. Both helped draft Hollinger documents key to the prosecution’s case. The testimony was videotaped in Toronto and, edited down to 12 hours, constitutes what I’m sure for the jury will be the thrill ride of a lifetime. Highlights include Sukonick going back and forth with the defence as to the veracity of a memo regarding the CanWest non-competes: “Prosecutors pushed Mr. Sukonick during the depositions to say that the memo was not true and that it was Lord Black and the others who allegedly pressed for the non-competition agreement. Defence lawyers took Mr. Sukonick to task for being ‘untruthful in his testimony.’” Not exactly Inherit the Wind, but it probably beats the parade of performing bean-counters so far.

Oh, and speaking of a parade, Steyn For The Defence^™ was at it again this weekend. The Maclean’s blogger interpreted Andrew Clark’s takedown of Conrad Black in the pages of The Guardian as “betraying an interesting evolution: Mr. Clark is contemplating the possibility of a ‘not guilty’ verdict.” This is a bit like teasing out Lincoln’s commitment to the Confederacy from the Gettysburg Address, but I guess that’s the price you pay for all those lunch-hour ham sandwiches with the defence team.