A MILAN preliminary hearing yesterday ruled that media tycoon and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi must stand trial next November to answer charges of collusion in the payment of £4.2 million worth of illegal funds by his Fininvest group to the Socialist party of former prime minister Bettino Craxi, also indicted for the November 21st trial.
Investigating magistrates from Milan's celebrated "Clean Hands" pool believe that Mr Berlusconi used "All Iberian", a Channel Islands based off shore company allegedly controlled by his Fininvest group, to effect the payments to the party of his longtime friend in October 1991.
Now in poor health and living in self imposed exile in Tunisia, Craxi was one of the most prominent of the Christian Democrat Socialist ruling class which foundered on the rocks of the infamous "Tangentopoli" corruption investigations in 1992. In his absence, he has already been sentenced to more than 25 years in other corruption trials.
Critics of Mr Berlusconi have always argued that he used his friendship with the politically powerful Mr Craxi in the 1980s to circumvent legal and ethical restrictions hampering the creation of his huge media empire which now features three national television channels and a 43 per cent share of the Italian television audience.
For Mr Berlusconi, too, this will not be a first courtroom appearance since he is currently on trial in Milan in a case which opened last January. He is accused of having condoned the payment of bribes to tax inspectors by four companies within the Fininvest group. Both Mr Berlusconi and Mr Craxi have repeatedly stressed their innocence, claiming that they are the victims of persecution by a politically motivated judiciary.