Conrad Black and his associates systematically stole $60 million (€44.7 million) from the publishing empire they once ran and then tried to hide what they did, prosecutors told jurors in final arguments at the former media baron's criminal fraud trial.

"We are not here because somebody made mistakes. We are not here because somebody didn't disclose something in a timely fashion," prosecutor Julie Ruder told the jury of 11 women and four men as the trial entered its 14th week.

"We are here because five men - these four defendants and David Radler - systematically stole $60 million. They checked their fiduciary duty at the door," she said.

Mr Radler is Lord Black's long-time business partner who turned government informer. He pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in a deal that will send him to jail, and was the prosecution's star witness in the trial.

"Did they try to cover their tracks? Yes," she said. "It is time to expose this cover story for the lie that it is. They had a duty, a duty to shareholders. But their duty was to each other, their loyalty was to each other.

"Conrad Black fancied himself a proprietor. No sackcloth and ashes for him," she said of the flamboyant Canadian-born Lord Black (62), a member of Britain's House of Lords.

"The others went along because it enriched them," she said. "They decided to take a piece of the pie. There is a great divide in this criminal trial. David Radler and others knew the truth . . . Shareholders did not know the truth."

Lord Black and three other former executives at Hollinger International are accused of pilfering $60 million in so-called non-competition payments that prosecutors contend rightfully belonged to the publishing giant and its shareholders.

The payments compensated Lord Black and the others for agreeing not to compete against the buyers of hundreds of publications that were being sold to pay accumulated debt.

Prosecutors contend they were turned into essentially non-taxed bonuses which the defendants awarded themselves.

Lawyers for Lord Black and the others have tried to show that non-compete agreements are a common business practice, and were properly disclosed to Hollinger International's auditors and approved by its high-profile board of directors.

But Ms Ruder, repeatedly ridiculing defence contentions by saying, "It's ridiculous", took the jury on a tour of the non-compete agreements at issue.

In one case, she said, "Conrad Black is paying himself not to compete with himself". In another, the businessman who paid $14 million for a number of newspapers, including the Jamestown, North Dakota, Sun, could not have "cared less" if Lord Black and the others signed such agreements because he knew they were not about to open another newspaper in Jamestown, a place with a population of 10,000, she said.

Such payments do not raise a "red flag, so it makes it easy for people like this", she said, pointing toward the defendants, "who know how it works".

She added: "This is the cover story. The buyers couldn't have cared less."

Lord Black is charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, racketeering and filing false tax returns.

If convicted, he could face decades in prison and forfeiture of millions of dollars.

He and former chief financial officer Jack Boultbee (63) also face charges that they abused company perks by allowing Lord Black to use a company aircraft on a South Seas holiday, to buy a luxury New York condominium owned by the company, and to use company funds to defray the cost of a surprise birthday party for Lord Black's wife at an upscale New York restaurant.

Mr Boultbee and co-defendants Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis, both lawyers for the company, face lesser charges.

The closing arguments are expected to consume most of the week before the case is handed to the jury. Twelve of the 15 jurors will decide the case, while the three others will be kept in abeyance as alternates.

Hollinger was one of the world's largest publishers before Lord Black and the others began disposing of its properties. It has since been renamed the Sun-Times Media Group.