Berlusconi gets 1-year jail sentence in wiretap trial
Source: Agencies |
March 8, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN Italian court sentenced ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to one year in jail over the publication by his family's newspaper of a transcript of a leaked wiretap connected to a banking scandal in 2006.
Italian justice system rules mean the 76-year-old media billionaire would not have to serve any jail time until the appeals process has been exhausted, and a higher court may still overturn the ruling.
It came in the middle of a political impasse arising from last week's election which left no party able to form a government on its own, although Berlusconi's centre-right formation emerged as the second strongest in parliament.
Berlusconi is in the middle of a series of trials, with separate cases over charges of tax fraud and paying for sex with an underage prostitute due to wind up this month.
Following yesterday's verdict, he repeated denials that he was in any way connected with wrongdoing and said the decision showed that politically motivated judges were conducting a campaign against him.
"It is impossible to tolerate judicial persecution of this kind which has been going on for 20 years and which re-emerges every time there are politically complex moments in the political life of our country," he said in a statement.
Berlusconi's brother Paolo, publisher of the family-owned Il Giornale daily, was sentenced to two years and three months over the same case centered on confidential wiretap transcripts related to a bank takeover which appeared in the newspaper.
The court awarded 80,000 euros (US$104,796) in damages to Piero Fassino, who was head of the main centre-left party at the time of the incident and whose remarks were caught on the wiretap and published in the newspaper.
Fassino asserted that Il Giornale published the transcripts shortly before the 2006 election to create the impression that he had exercised improper pressure in the attempted takeover of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro by insurer Unipol in 2005.
On Wednesday, Italy's highest appeals court upheld a ruling clearing Berlusconi of tax fraud in connection with his Mediatrade broadcasting rights firm.
His trial on charges of paying for sex with a juvenile prostitute is expected to wind up on March 18 while a separate trial over broadcast rights is expected to conclude on March 23.
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