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Perjury (pər-jər-ee)

A.  The act of intentionally making a false statement under oath.

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Legal Definition - 

The act or an instance of a person's deliberately making material false or misleading statements while under oath.--Also termed false swearing; false oath; (archaically) forswearing.
Black's Law Dictionary® Eighth Edition © 2004


Current Usage -

Three key witnesses in Tommy Sheridan's £200,000 libel victory against the News of the World have been charged with perjury, two months after the former Scottish Socialist party leader was charged with the same offence. Police are investigating allegations that a number of senior members of Sheridan's Solidarity party lied on oath during his defamation case against the newspaper, which had accused him of taking part in drink and drug-fuelled orgies. Sheridan won his case in August 2006 after a jury in Edinburgh heard highly charged testimony from his wife Gail about her husband's fidelity and his own repeated denials of guilt. She and her father Gus are due to be formally interviewed by police as part of the same perjury investigation on Tuesday. Lothian and Borders police confirmed yesterday that it had now charged three of those witnesses in connection with their perjury investigation, which was set up at the request of Lord Turnbull, the judge in the 23-day libel trial. Rosemary Byrne, 59, a close friend of Sheridan's and herself a former MSP in his socialist party Solidarity, was arrested and charged with perjury earlier this week, a party spokesman confirmed.
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent, The Guardian,Saturday February 16, 2008

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