Victory for Berlusconi as Mills case folds

AN ITALIAN court has ruled the statute of limitations has run out in a corruption case against Silvio Berlusconi, handing the former prime minister another victory in a long series of judicial woes.

The billionaire media mogul was not in court when the three judges read out their verdict after about two hours of deliberation yesterday. Defendants in Italy are not required to attend their trials.

Berlusconi had denied any wrongdoing. He was accused of paying a British lawyer David Mills – the estranged husband of former Labour Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell – almost £380,000 to lie during two 1990s trials to shield the politician and his Fininvest holding company from charges related to his business dealings.

Berlusconi’s lawyers successfully argued that the case should be thrown out because the statute of limitation had run out.

It is “useless to comment”, prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale said as he left the court. Prosecutors had demanded a five-year jail term on conviction. One of Berlusconi’s lawyers, Piero Longo, indicated that the defence team was less than elated as it would have preferred an acquittal.

The three-judge panel began its deliberations yesterday after Berlusconi’s defence made its closing statements, arguing for their client to be cleared.

Berlusconi, 75, quit in November after failing to get Italy out of a sovereign debt crisis. On Friday he railed against magistrates for his “many trials”. He added: “Mills was one of many lawyers abroad that occasionally worked for the Fininvest group. I don’t recall ever having met him.”