Our very own Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted at the highest level of appeal in the Process Mediaset for tax fraud, falsification of accounts, embezzlement, and the creation of black funds in the management of television rights for Mediaset, his television empire. The case also involved a scandal in which the British advocate David Mills was said to have been bribed and to have given false witness.

The trick involved setting up an intermediate companies in tax havens and then paying those companies higher fees than those actually charged by the film distributors. Funds were then transferred to secret bank accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas. The amount involved was said to be in the order of 280 million euro. In the end he was convicted for tax evasion of "only" 7.3 million euro because the fraud previous to a certain date had fallen under the "statute of limitations". A law that his government had modified, one of many, to the benefit of Silvio Berlusconi.

In the end he was sentenced to four years in prison (reduced to one for an amnesty), a fine of 10 million euro, and banned for two years from public service. That has not stopped him from being the president of his political party and having just as much effect on legislation as if he were actually in the parliament. This has included several conferences with the prime minister. Due to his age, another convenient law, he never served any time in prison and initially was supposed to serve this time under house arrest. He managed to have accepted his request for replacing this with work "socially useful" and his effective sentence was reduced to 4 hours a week working in an old folks home for ten and a half months. That is equivalent to 7 days in prison. All this makes the Grossi case seem very severe by comparison and the eventual judgement will probably be much lighter.

In the bitter words of Ignazio Messina, secretary of the Italia dei Valori party, "In Italy tax fraud is worth while".

In the case involving underage prostitution he has been absolved, on appeal, not because the underage prostitution did not occur, but on the basis that he could not have known the girl was underage. This is despite some evidence to the contrary. In some jurisdictions ignorance of the age of a girl with whom one has a sexual relationship is not considered an excuse.

In today's news the procuratore generale (Pg) of Milan has just filed an appeal in the supreme court against the absolution of Berlusconi in the court of appeal. As a little aside I am astonished that no legal investigation has been made of the now millionaire status of the girl involved and that she has not been prosecuted for perjury. She has made conflicting sworn statements and evidence in court.

Just as well that every court in Italy has, above the judges, the words "The law is equal for everyone".


Peter

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