Berlusconi cleared of corruption

Berlusconi cleared of corruption Mr Berlusconi had maintained his innocence Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been cleared of corruption after a four-year trial. Mr Berlusconi had been accused of bribing judges in the 1980s to favour his business interests.

He was acquitted on one count, and on the other judges in Milan ruled that the alleged offence happened too long ago for charges to be pressed.

Mr Berlusconi, who was not in court for the verdict, said the decision was "better late than never".

He is the first serving Italian prime minister to have been tried a criminal court.

The accusations had related to the billionaire's business activities before he entered politics, when he made a fortune in property and television.

Mr Berlusconi was acquitted of a charge that he had bribed judges in connection with the sale in the 1980s of the SME state food conglomerate.

The panel of three judges ruled that the second charge had lapsed under Italy's statute of limitations.

"It's a verdict which is largely satisfactory, which brings to an end a 10-year case which has been shown to be substantially useless," said one of Mr Berlusconi's lawyers, Niccolo Ghedini.

Defence lawyers said the prime minister would have preferred to have a ruling on the second charge as well, in order to have his name fully cleared.

State prosecutors had demanded an eight-year jail term, had Mr Berlusconi been found guilty.

Mr Berlusconi only attended court three times during the four-year legal process, saying his responsibilities as prime minister left him no time.

The trial was suspended last summer after parliament passed a controversial law giving Mr Berlusconi immunity from prosecution.

In a separate corruption trial last year, Mr Berlusconi's former trusted aide, Cesare Previti, and prominent judge Renato Squillante, received lengthy prison sentences. Both men have launched appeals.

When Mr Berlusconi became prime minister in 2001 he faced four criminal trials, one on charges of bribing judges, the others on charges of false accounting.

But new legislation brought in by his government made most forms of false accounting by private companies into civil rather than criminal offences.

Three guilty verdicts handed down against Mr Berlusconi before he became prime minister were quashed on appeal.

Berlusconi Saved in Graft Trial by Time Ruling
Fri Dec 10, 2004 01:49 PM ET

By Emilio Parodi

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi escaped conviction in a major corruption trial on Friday after a court invoked a statute of limitations that meant time had run out to sentence him for bribery.

Berlusconi welcomed the nuanced verdict, which brought down the curtain on a trial that lasted almost five years, saying he had expected not to be condemned.

"I was right to have been completely at peace about this because I was fully aware that I didn't do anything wrong," he said in a statement in Rome after being informed of the ruling in Italy's financial capital.

The ruling, read to a packed court in Milan's imposing Palace of Justice, implied that the 68-year-old Berlusconi was guilty of one count of corruption of a Rome judge in 1991 but could not be sentenced because of the time limit.

The court then acquitted Berlusconi of a second charge of bribing judges.

Opposition politicians said the verdict left a shadow over Berlusconi's ability to govern because the court had not declared him fully innocent and had used a legal mechanism that prevented sentencing.

"Once more people are playing with words in order to defraud public opinion. The statute of limitations is not a declaration of innocence but it presumes guilt," said opposition politician Antonio di Pietro, a former star anti-graft magistrate.

"It is important to remember that only the length of time that has passed prohibited the judges from ruling on the merits of the case," he said.

He and other opposition politicians called on Berlusconi to step down.

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES

Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul and the first serving Italian prime minister to stand in a criminal trial, was accused of bribing the Rome judiciary in the late 1980s and again in 1991 to win favorable rulings for his Fininvest company.

The prime minister always maintained his innocence and said he was the victim of a politically motivated legal witchhunt. State prosecutors said he had authorized massive bribes and had demanded an eight-year prison term. However, under Italian law, a court can accept "mitigating circumstances" for a defendant with a clean criminal record and halve the usual 15-year statute of limitations.

As the charge dated back to 1991, Berlusconi was thus automatically saved from a potentially devastating verdict.

Berlusconi's lawyer Gaetano Pecorella told reporters that the prime minister would nonetheless appeal the ruling and seek a full acquittal in both counts of corruption.

While Berlusconi has faced several investigations and trials into corruption charges tied to his business dealings, the bribery charge was the most serious case brought against him.

It revolved around accusations that Fininvest paid off Rome judges to win a takeover battle for state-owned food firm SME.

In a twin trial that ended last year, a Milan court found one of Berlusconi's former lawyers, Cesare Previti, guilty of bribing judge Renato Squillante -- not over SME but to secure a favorable legal climate for Fininvest in Rome legal circles.

Previti was handed a five-year prison term and Squillante an eight-year term. Both men are appealing.

Reuters

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