Berlusconi tax fraud sentence upheld by Italian court

Berlusconi tax fraud sentence upheld by Italian court



MILAN Wed May 8, 2013 7:52pm BST

(Reuters) - A Milan appeals court
upheld a four-year sentence for tax fraud against former prime minister
and centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday, adding to the
complications facing Italy's fragile coalition government.

In addition to the jail
sentence for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of broadcasting
rights by his television network Mediaset, the court's ruling would also
bar Berlusconi from holding public office for five years.
However,
neither sentence will take effect unless confirmed in a final appeal
before the court of cassation when the three-stroke appeals process
allowed under Italian law has been exhausted.
The
76-year-old media magnate was accused of inflating the price paid for
television rights using offshore companies under his control, and
skimming off part of that money to create illegal slush funds.
Berlusconi,
who is facing a separate trial on charges of paying for sex with a
minor in notorious "bunga bunga" parties, had appealed to reverse the
four year sentence handed down in October.
However,
his lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said he had little confidence that the Milan
court would listen to his arguments and repeated that judges were
biased against Berluscno for political reasons.
"We
realised it was totally useless to give our arguments to a court of
appeals that in our opinion had decided from the first day what its
judgment would be," Ghedini told reporters.
Italy's
top appeals court this week rejected a request by Berlusconi to move
his trials out of Milan, where he argued he could not get a fair trial
as judges were biased against him.
Berlusconi,
head of the centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL), is not a member
of the coalition administration headed by Prime Minister Enrico Letta
but he has the power to bring the government down in parliament.
The next hearing of his trial for paying for sex with a minor is scheduled for May 13.


source:-
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/uk-berlusconi-mediaset-idUKBRE9470W420130508