Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers said today the Italian prime minister would not be able to attend the resumption of his corruption trial on December 4th due to a prior engagement, the inauguration of a stretch of motorway.
The 73-year-old conservative leader and media mogul says this case and others are part of a campaign by biased courts and the opposition press to bring down his 19-month-old government, his third term in power since 1994.
This weekend Mr Berlusconi vowed to sue opposition newspapers for reporting that he would be investigated by courts that have reopened investigations into a 1993 bombing campaign by the Cosa Nostra based on the evidence of a mobster-turned-state witness.
The "pentito" or Mafia informant should give evidence also on Friday in Turin, where he is in a maximum security jail, at the request of a Sicilian court hearing the appeal of Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, a Berlusconi associate who was convicted of association with the Mafia and sentenced to nine years in jail.
The "pentito" has said Mr Berlusconi and Dell'Utri were named to him by one of the Mafia bosses jailed for a bomb attack in Florence, but the chief prosecutor in that city denied reports that this meant Mr Berlusconi would be placed under investigation.
Mr Berlusconi has called such talk "unfounded and insulting" and defended his record in the fight against organised crime.
In the bribery case, Mr Berlusconi is charged with paying the British lawyer David Mills, once married to a British minister, €400,000 in 1997 to withhold incriminating evidence about the activities of his broadcasting empire Mediaset.
Mills was convicted of taking a bribe in February and got a 4-1/2 year jail sentence, pending appeal. Mr Berlusconi's trial was suspended thanks to a law giving him immunity from prosecution, which has now been ruled unconstitutional, meaning two pending trials against him should now resume.
The other trial is for tax fraud and false accounting in the acquisition of media rights by Mediaset. Prosecutors say it paid an inflated price to offshore firms controlled by Mr Berlusconi.
Mr Berlusconi says he is confident of acquittal in both cases but would remain as prime minister even if convicted. He says he wants to be present in court but that his official commitments are a legitimate impediment to attending until a later date.
Mr Berlusconi's lawyers had originally said a cabinet meeting on Friday would prevent him from attending, but they changed that to say the prime minister had to inaugurate a stretch of new road in the south between Salerno and Reggio Calabria.
That means Friday's hearing will probably just set a new date, with the lawyers saying Mr Berlusconi is available on January 18th and 25th.
If delayed too long, charges will elapse under the statute of limitations. This happened in another corruption case, where Mr Berlusconi's holding company Fininvest was hit with €750 million in damages last month for bribing a judge, but criminal charges against Mr Berlusconi had elapsed.
Reuters