But last night the signs were that Berlusconi does not intend calling demonstrations, let alone a snap election.
“The government will carry on calmly, unconcernedly and with more grit even than before,” he vowed.
The law overturned by the court had extended immunity from prosecution to the president, the two parliamentary speakers and the prime minister. It led to the suspension of one trial in which Berlusconi is a defendant and his removal from another in which his co-defendant was the British lawyer, David Mills, husband of the UK’s Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell.
Mills will today launch his appeal against a jail sentence of four-and-a-half years that he was given in February after being convicted of accepting a bribe from Berlusconi — a verdict that logically is tantamount to establishing that a bribe had been paid by Berlusconi.
His lawyer is expected to ask the court in Milan for leave to call the prime minister as a witness.
RSS