Court hands Berlusconi 2-year political ban
Print Edition
A MILAN court ruled yesterday that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi should be barred from holding public office for two years following a conviction for tax fraud.
However, since Berlusconi is a senator, the court’s decision will have no immediate effect and his expulsion from the Senate will depend on a separate vote in the upper house of parliament, expected next month.
Yesterday’s ruling reflected the prosecution’s request for a two-year ban. Berlusconi’s lawyers, who said they would appeal the decision to the supreme court, had asked for a one-year ban, the minimum under the law being applied in the Milan case. The maximum would have been three years.
Italy’s supreme court on August 1 definitively upheld a tax fraud conviction against the center-right leader, rejecting his final appeal against an earlier four-year jail sentence.
The four-year sentence was commuted to one year, and, if the Senate expels him, Berlusconi, 77, will spend the year either under house arrest or in community service.
In the August 1 ruling, the supreme court confirmed the conviction but ordered a further judicial review of a ban on holding public office imposed for the same offense.
The upper house’s vote next month will effectively supersede the Milan court’s decision because it will be based on a separate law, which, if he is expelled, would ban Berlusconi from public office for six years.
Losing his seat in the Senate would deprive Berlusconi, who is fighting a conviction for paying for sex with a minor among other legal cases, of his parliamentary immunity from arrest.
A special Senate committee opened the way earlier this month for a motion to expel Berlusconi.
The Senate is dominated by Berlusconi opponents from both the left and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and is expected to vote to strip him of his seat.
(Reuters)
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