Trials and allegations involving Silvio Berlusconi

The outcome for six of those cases were politically altered to end with "no conviction", because of laws passed by Berlusconi's parliamentary majority shortening the time limit for prosecution of various offences and making false accounting illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities.

[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Berlusconi claimed that "this is a manifest judicial persecution, against which I am proud to resist, and the fact that my resistance and sacrifice will give the Italians a more fair and efficient judicial system makes me even more proud",[8] and added that "789 prosecutors and magistrates took an interest in the politician Berlusconi from 1994 to 2006 with the aim of subverting the votes of the Italian people" citing statistics that he said have constituted a "calvary including 577 visits by police, 2,500 court hearings and 174 million euros in lawyers' bills paid by me".

Notes: In 1981, a scandal arose after the police discovery of Licio Gelli's secret quasi-Masonic (freemason) lodge Propaganda 2 (P2), which aimed to change the Italian political system to a more authoritarian regime.

Such statements conflicted with the findings of the parliamentary inquiry commission appointed to investigate the lodge's activity, with material evidence, and even with previous testimony of Berlusconi, all of which proved that he had actually been a member of P2 since 1978 and had indeed paid 100,000 Italian liras (approximately equivalent to €300 today)[citation needed] as an entry fee.

In December 2010, information obtained by the Wikileaks website revealed Mr Berlusconi had become very fond of Ms Jowell, referring to her in private company as 'piccolo puntaspilli' (the little pincushion).

[citation needed] On 17 February 2009, Mills was found guilty of accepting a bribe of about 400,000 pounds sterling, allegedly from Silvio Berlusconi, and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.

He was accused of connections with the people responsible for the massacres of 1992 (Capaci and via D'Amelio) where two prosecuting magistrates, involved in the Mafia trial known as "Maxi-processo" of the 1980s, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were brutally murdered.

[74] In April 2010, the supreme court noted through the published motivations of its ruling in the Bribery of lawyer David Mills to commit perjury case, that his false testimony had resulted in an incorrect acquittal for the charges against Silvio Berlusconi in the Arces process.

Court of First Instance: sentenced to jail (2 years and 4 months) for paying 21 billion lire (about 10 million euro) to Bettino Craxi via an offshore bank account codenamed "All Iberian".

The prosecutor then instead interrogated four other business people from Reteitalia, and in November 1995 filed an indictment request for all five persons (including Silvio Berlusconi) for having committed false accounting and embezzlement.

First court: The statute of limitations expired due to the new laws on false accounting approved by Berlusconi's government, therefore the case was closed with an acquittal on 4 July 2002.

In Spain, Silvio Berlusconi, along with other Fininvest managers, was charged with violation of antitrust law, money laundering, and tax fraud for 100bn lira,[42] for the TV-channel Telecinco he founded.

[50][79] The publication of the conversations between then Governor of the Bank of Italy Antonio Fazio, senior management of Unipol and Italian centre-left politician Piero Fassino was a breach of secrecy rules and was seen at the time as an attempt to discredit Berlusconi's political rivals.

[50] The first-instance ruling was issued 7 March 2013, and sentenced Berlusconi to a year in prison and the joint payment together with his also convicted brother, of 80,000 euro as compensatory damages in favor of Piero Fassino in addition to court litigation costs of €10,000.

[51][52][53] On 31 March 2014, the Milan Court of Appeal ruled that the evidence did not clear Paolo and Silvio Berlusconi from guilt, but that the facts are now prescribed, which mean they were both acquitted due to the statutes of limitations.

[87] Due to being over 70 years of age, Berlusconi was not placed direct in prison but could decide if he wanted to serve his one-year jail term either by a house arrest at one of his private residences or by doing community service.

The pending senate vote, combined with anger over Berlusconi's conviction (a poll indicated 42% of the public believed he was unfairly persecuted by the magistrates) presented a serious political challenge for the fragile ruling coalition.

[88] On 30 August, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano announced he had not selected Berlusconi as one of the new four lifetime senators, which are granted the privileges of being a lawmaker for life with some protected legal immunity, meaning they can continue working in politics even after being convicted guilty for criminal offences that otherwise would lead to ban from serving one of the public offices.

[89] On 9 September, a Senate committee began its deliberations to decide if Berlusconi's public office ban shall start immediately or by the end of his current legislative term.

The response by Prime Minister Enrico Letta's centre-left Democratic Party was to reject Berlusconi's plea, accusing him of only launching time-wasting maneuvers.

The Democratic Party replied by warning the PDL that they would reject any blackmail attempts, and in any case only would vote in the Senate committee according to the standard of the Italian law.

"[93] The meeting at the second day ended with PDL agreeing to drop their series of technical objections to try to halt the hearings, on the agreement that each of the committee members could speak at greater length in a broad discussion on the merits of the case.

[94] On 18 September, Berlusconi made a national televised speech, in which he pledged to stay as party leader of a revived Forza Italia, no matter if the Senate would end up deciding to expel him or not.

[102] Berlusconi was expected to start serving his four-year prison sentence (reduced to one year), either under house arrest or doing unpaid social community work, in mid-October 2013.

[106] Berlusconi began his community service at a Catholic care home centre on 9 May 2014, where he was required to work four hours a week for a year with elderly dementia patients.

[108] In February 2013, Silvio Berlusconi was under investigation for corruption and illegal financing of political parties from the public prosecutor of Naples, in the figures of Vincenzo Piscitelli, Henry John Woodcock, Francesco Curcio, Alessandro Milita and Fabrizio Vanorio.

For Senator De Gregorio the process has already been closed in a preliminary hearing, because he opted to self-confess and bargained a reduced sentence of 20 months in prison for the crime.

[111] When his solicitor, Professor Coppi, "recalled the constitutional basis of the freedom of parliamentary activity, the prosecutor Woodcock reacted indicating the illegality of the transfer of money, which resulted in the sale of senators.

[114] Berlusconi repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the educational degree of the former Operation "Clean Hands" magistrate and leader of the Italy of Values party, Antonio Di Pietro, when he during a 2008 election rally and in an episode of the talk show Porta a Porta in March 2008, repeatedly claimed, that Di Pietro had not obtained his magistrate degree by passing the exams, but with the complicity of the secret services diverted, in order to have a judge placed in the system to overturn the parties of the so-called First Republic.

[62] On 5 October 2010, the court in Viterbo considered Berlusconi could not be judged or punished, because of the parliamentarian immunity Article 68 of the Italian constitution forbidding any legal prosecutions against words spoken by parliamentarians in the process of their "exercise of parliamentary duties", in conjunction with the Chamber of Deputies recently having voted for a decree to appoint Berlusconi absolute immunity for any spoken words while serving as a deputy.