April 24, 2007 — Hollinger International Inc.’s former finance chief John Boultbee hid details of non-compete payments paid to him and former Chairman Conrad Black, an accountant testified at their fraud trial.

Marilyn Stitt, of the accounting firm KPMG, said she demanded Hollinger disclose the $71 million in payments if it wanted a clean audit in 2002. Her testimony yesterday in Chicago federal court supported prosecution claims that the men looted the company by disguising theft as non-compete fees.

“If they were not disclosed, we would have to qualify our audit report,” Stitt said she told Boultbee in 2002. Boultbee denied there were other payments, she testified.

The $71 million stemmed from Hollinger’s 2000 sale of newspapers to CanWest Global Communications Inc. Records show the executives got additional fees from sales to Osprey Media Holdings Inc. and the sale of U.S. community newspapers, prosecutors claim. Buyers paid the defendants so they wouldn’t compete in the markets Hollinger was abandoning.

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