Berlusconi facing his 'parliamentary Vietnam' over bid to end prosecutions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Independent

Berlusconi facing his 'parliamentary Vietnam' over bid to end prosecutions
By Michael Day in Milan
Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Silvio Berlusconi's supporters in parliament were last night fighting to push through law changes widely seen as a cynical attempt to save the premier from a bribery conviction.

Outraged opposition MPs threatened a "parliamentary Vietnam", as they prepared to fight the plans to shorten the statute of limitations – a move that would lead to dozens of criminal trials being killed off and would allow the premier to walk free.

Mr Berlusconi is charged with paying the British lawyer David Mills $600,000 (£370,000) to lie on his behalf in a courtroom battle. Mr Mills, estranged husband of the former British Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, was found guilty of accepting $600,000 from the premier, but his four-and-a-half-year jail sentence was quashed last year because there was not time for his second appeal to be heard.

The new proposals would see trials timed-out more quickly for people such as the premier who do not have secure convictions. Mr Berlusconi, while found guilty of other crimes in lower courts, has been cleared on appeal or benefitted from the existing statute of limitations. Under the parliamentary proposal, the Mills bribery trial involving the premier would be killed off next month instead of in 2012.






Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/berlusconi-facing-his-parliamentary-vietnam-over-bid-to-end-prosecutions-2266956.html