A court in Milan on Saturday adjourned for a month the trial of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accused of corrupting his former tax lawyer, as the leader pursued efforts to get the judges off his back.
Berlusconi, who did not attend the hearing, is on trial for allegedly paying US$600,000 to British tax lawyer David Mills in exchange for false testimony during two trials in the mid-1990s.
Mills’ parallel trial for the same crime was thrown out by Italy’s appeals court on Thursday because the statute of limitations had expired, even though judges decided the crime had taken place.
Italian law sets a 10-year limit for prosecution of judiciary corruption crimes and terms for Berlusconi’s trial are set to expire early next year.
Berlusconi’s lawyers on Saturday asked the court to suspend the trial until details on the Mills ruling were published, but judges refused because “the trial cannot be suspended for an undetermined amount of time.”
The prime minister launched a fresh attack on the country’s judges on Friday, likening them to Afghanistan’s Taliban and accusing them of using the judiciary for political purposes.
Citing ongoing reforms to the justice system which critics say are designed to make him harder to prosecute, Berlusconi said: “I don’t think it will please the Taliban in the judiciary.”
The secretary of Italy’s magistrates’ union, Giuseppe Cascini, replied, saying that “this escalations of insults and attacks against Italian magistrates is intolerable.”
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday called on the prime minister and the magistrates to tone down the “very serious accusations” which fuel “dangerous tensions” between branches of government.
Tens of thousands of Italians congregated on Saturday in Piazza del Popolo in central Rome to protest against Berlusconi under a banner reading “Enough. The law is the same for everyone.”
Organizers put the turnout at some 200,000.
“We are starved of legality,” said Angelo Bonelli, the head of the Greens party. “Today, the real Taliban is Berlusconi who wants to tie up the hands of the magistrates.”
Berlusconi’s battles with the law have marked his public life since he burst onto the political scene in the mid-1990s.
The media tycoon has faced charges including corruption, tax fraud, false accounting and illegally financing political parties.
He was initially a co-defendant in the Mills trial, but proceedings against him were suspended after parliament approved a law shielding him from prosecution while in office, shortly after he returned to power in 2008.
However Italy’s Constitutional Court struck down that legislation last year.
Meanwhile new laws are going through parliament that would have the effect of keeping Berlusconi out of the courts.
One would allow the prime minister or any member of his Cabinet to be automatically granted the suspension of legal process for at least 18 months.
Passed by the lower house after a stormy debate, it is to be debated by the senate on March 9.
More legislation would quash any legal action if a final verdict is not handed down within six years of it being launched — which would end a large number of ongoing cases, not just those against Berlusconi.
Since a separate trial against the prime minister restarted in December, he has not appeared in court in the two hearings so far, citing government commitments.
Berlusconi has never been definitively convicted: In some trials he was acquitted, while other cases were dropped because the statute of limitations expired.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia