The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, appeared to slip through the noose of litigation on Thursday after the Italian senate approved a bill giving top government executives immunity from prosecution.
In one of the speediest decisions in Italy's notoriously slow legislative history, the bill is expected to become law, and so suspend Berlusconi's corruption trial indefinitely, just days before Italy takes over the EU presidency on July 1.
Mr Berlusconi's trial in Milan, for allegedly bribing judges to swing a corporate takeover deal in the 1980s, had been drawing to a close, and fears were growing that he might be handed a jail term.
The prime minister, who denies the corruption charges and says he is victim of a political conspiracy by leftwing judges, proposed the law himself.
His coalition holds a majority of seats in both chambers, and the chamber of deputies is expected to approve the bill on June 21.
Parliamentary immunity was revoked in 1993 when Milan judges led the "hands clean" investigations that exposed corruption throughout the old Italian political classes. Commentators said the idea of reinstating immunity quickly, for a select few, had won broad consensus as it was seen as the only way to avoid a constitutional crisis.
But irate members of the left called the proposed law a "monstrous unconstitutional mistake." Gavino Angius, senator for the Democrats of the Left, said, "It is not a scandal to discuss parliamentary immunity ... what is scandalous is to think that immunity becomes impunity -- people (getting) elected not to serve their country but to avoid being prosecuted."
Until the lower house approves the bill, Berlusconi is still on trial and is due to testify on June 11. He has suggested he will reveal the truth about the alleged bribery scandal surrounding the state food giant SME, in 1986. At court in May, he accused the former prime minister Romano Prodi of trying to sell off SME cut-price to Carlo de Benedetti, a leading Italian businessman.
Prodi dismissed the accusations, and de Benedetti described the case in an interview with Le Monde as "a colossal hoax."
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