Berlusconi defends measure that would suspend his trial

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, speaking during a battle over legislation that could suspend his corruption trial, defended himself Tuesday against charges that he was using public office to protect his private interests.

Critics have called the bill a "prime minister-saving" measure, but Berlusconi said it was for the good of all Italian citizens and lashed out against "extreme leftist" magistrates who mounted "fictional trials" against him for political gain.

Separately, Berlusconi has said that he would reintroduce an immunity bill to shield top officials from prosecution.

"Here it goes again," La Stampa, a moderate newspaper, said Tuesday.

During much of his previous time in office, from 2001 to 2006, Berlusconi fought accusations that he had pursued his own interests rather than those of the nation.

The new measure, proposed by conservative allies of Berlusconi, seeks to suspend for one year all trials for crimes committed before mid-2002. The measure includes a list of exceptions, including violent crimes, Mafia-related offenses or crimes punishable by prison terms of 10 years or more.

But the proposal could mean the suspension of a case in Milan in which Berlusconi is accused of ordering a payment in 1997 of at least $600,000 to his co-defendant, the British lawyer David Mills, in exchange for false testimony at two trials in the 1990s involving Berlusconi. The defendants deny the charges.

In the previous cases concerning graft, Berlusconi was acquitted or the statute of limitations expired.

The media in Italy has said that a verdict in the current trial, which started in March 2007, was imminent. But lawyers for Berlusconi made a formal request Tuesday for the presiding judge to be removed, an attorney, Piersilvio Cipollotti, said. The lawyers charge the judge with being biased against Berlusconi.

While the appeals court considers that request, a procedure that is expected to take a week, the trial will continue and a hearing is scheduled for Friday.

"Berlusconi is allergic to justice," said Antonio Di Pietro, an opposition lawmaker and a prosecutor in the early 1990s for anti-corruption cases. "He doesn't want the law, before which all are equal, to be applied to him."

Another opposition leader, Lanfranco Tenaglia, said the proposed measure was the latest proof that the prime minister's "perennial conflicts of interest still mark the judicial policy" of his government.

Magistrates have raised doubts about the constitutionality of the measure, with some saying that it violates the principle that are all equal before the law.

Giuseppe Cascini, of the National Magistrates Association, expressed "worry and alarm" at Berlusconi's new "attacks and insults."

The bill is part of an anti-crime package that Berlusconi says will allow Italy's notoriously slow courts to focus on violent crimes.

Berlusconi criticized the opposition for saying that the measure should not be approved "only because it would be applied to a trial in which I am unfairly and incredibly involved."

(Published by Herald Tribune - june 18, 2008)