Berlusconi ally convicted of corruption
A Milan court today convicted an ally of Italian primer minister Silvio Berlusconi of one corruption charge, sentencing him to five years in prison, but acquitted him of another corruption charge, that of bribing judges.
Until a few months ago the premier was a defendant in the same trial.
Cesare Previti, a lawyer and lawmaker who was defence minister in Berlusconi’s first government in 1994, was convicted of having made a €434,000 corruption payment, said Previti’s lawyer, Giorgio Perroni.
Perroni insisted that that sum was due his client for his work as a lawyer and that Previti passed on that sum to another defendant, Attilio Pacifico, for reasons unrelated to the case.
The prosecution, said Perroni, instead had argued that the money eventually made its way to a judge, Renato Squillante, a third defendant in the case. But Perroni argued that the idea that Squillante was corrupted by Previti was absurd because Squillante, in a defamation case, had ruled against Berlusconi’s media empire Fininvest.
Berlusconi had been on trial in the same case until June, when parliament passed an immunity bill sparing Italy’s top five public office holders – the premier, the president, the heads of the two chambers of Parliament and the chief justice of the Constitutional Court – from prosecution while in power. Berlusconi was the only one of the five who was standing trial at the time the law was passed.
While his case was postponed, the trial continued for Previti and a few other defendants, who along with Berlusconi were accused of bribing judges in Rome in the 1980s to sway a ruling on the sale of state-held food conglomerate SME.
Pacifico was convicted of corruption in connection with the payment and sentenced to four years in prison, while Squillante was convicted of the same charge and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Said Perroni of Previti’s acquittal on the judge-bribing charge in the SME case: “I can’t be happy when an innocent man is halfway convicted.”
Earlier, Perroni told reporters outside the courtroom that he hoped the judges in the appeals court will be more “impartial.”
Prosecutors had asked the court to convict Previti and hand down an 11-year sentence.
In April, Previti was convicted in a similar bribery case and sentenced to 11 years.
Previti is free while appealing that conviction and today’s conviction.
Berlusconi, who, like Previti, has insisted he is a victim of left-wing prosecutors, made no immediate comment on today’s verdict.
Three other defendants in the case were acquitted.
For two other defendants, the court ruled that they could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out.
The court, which deliberated a few hours before announcing its decision, must deposit a written explanation for its verdicts within 90 days.
