Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that his trials in Milan were like firing squads and he had not decided whether to appear in court to defend himself.
Berlusconi faces charges of corruption and tax fraud in two trials tied to his media business empire. The conservative leader denies wrongdoing and has often lashed out at what he considers left-leaning and biased magistrates.
Speaking to reporters in Rome, Berlusconi said that “if I appeared, I would find myself not in front of courts of justice but of firing squads.”
Defendants in Italy are not obliged to attend their trials.
The prime minister’s comments came just after a law that could cut short his trials won initial approval in parliament.
The measure would cap the length of Italy’s three-stage trials, which are notoriously slow and can take years to wind through all their phases. Critics say the law is the latest measure tailor-made to protect Berlusconi. Backers insist it is a necessary reform of the sluggish justice system.
Depending on the seriousness of the alleged crime, proceedings would be terminated if judges in the initial trial take more than two or three years to reach a verdict. The limit could be as low as six and a half years for the entire three stages allowed under Italy’s justice system.
The measure has drawn the ire of the opposition because it would apply retroactively also to ongoing trials and could end proceedings against the prime minister.
His trials have been going on for years with several interruptions. Lately they were restarted, following a one-year hiatus, when the Constitutional Court overturned a law that gave the Berlusconi immunity while in office.
Since then, Berlusconi’s lawyers and allies have been scrambling to come up with measures that might shield him from the trials.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS