Italy: "Persecuted" Berlusconi guilty of corruption (feature)
01 September 1998
On July 6 Silvio Berlusconi, former prime minister, media tycoon and leader of the right-wing opposition Freedom Alliance (Polo della Liberta), was sentenced in Milan to two years and nine months on corruption charges. The charges related to the payment of 380 million Lire (approximately £132,000) in bribes, aimed at "softening" tax inspection into the accounts of three of his Fininvest holding group's businesses (Mondadori, Mediolanum and Videotime), and influencing the findings of an inquiry into the effective stakeholding in Tele+ (pay-television channel). The investigation has exposed corruption within the Italian customs establishment, with Berlusconi allegedly responsible for a number of episodes between 1989 and 1992.
Berlusconi was first publicly linked to the investigation in explosive fashion, on November 21, 1994, when an investigating team led by Borrelli sent him a summons to testify during a UN conference on crime he was hosting in Naples. Berlusconi, who was then prime minister, mounted a vehement campaign against the investigating team, whose actions (and timing) he saw as being aimed at discrediting him. This was to develop into an ongoing feud with the attorney's office in Milan.
The prosecution replied that the summons should not have been unexpected for Berlusconi was already involved in inquiries into corruption among customs officials to the point that he allegedly summoned Massimo Maria Berruti, a Fininvest employee who was formerly a customs officer, to Palazzo Chigi (home of the Italian Parliament), giving him instructions as to what certain customs officers should admit to, or deny. They produced the pass which Berruti had used in Palazzo Chigi, alleging that it was evidence of an attempt to mislead investigations. The defence claimed that prosecutors had submitted a false document, a view which was countered by the testimony of the policeman who had issued the pass.
On January 30 1998, prosecutor Gherardo Colombo illustrated the prosecution's case, stressing the influence which Berlusconi had on important members of the Guardia di Finanza (Italian Customs and Excise), some of whom were members of the clandestine P2 lodge, as was Berlusconi himself. Berlusconi emerges from the account as a businessman with enough clout to get the former Finance Minister, Rino Formica, from the scandal-ridden and now defunct Italian Socialist Party (PSI), to replace customs officers he regarded as inconvenient. Berlusconi was effectively having business dinners with the same officials who were responsible for investigating the businesses belonging his Fininvest holding group.
The original trial started on 17 January 1996, and the presiding judge, Carlo Crivelli, was replaced following his resignation after the controversy sparked by his remark that he would use "the stick and the carrot" to get to the bottom of the affair, fuelling right-wing denunciations of a conspiracy.
The second trial, presided over by judge Francesca Manca, found Berlusconi to be directly responsible for the corrupt episodes under investigation. These included a £35,000 bribe to influence inspections of the Videotime accounts in 1989, a £45,000 bribe to prevent troubles at the Mondadori publishing group from emerging in 1991, a further £35,000 payment to ensure a favourable inspection at Mediaset, and another £17,000 to prevent officers from revealing his actual share of ownership rights to Tele+2 pay television channel.
His brother Paolo Berlusconi was acquitted, despite admitting his responsibility in a spontaneous declaration in which he claimed that "I decided to give Sciascia permission to pay the customs officers. I had no need to bring that ugly problem to my brother's table, and I didn't." The judges did not believe him, interpreting his intervention as an attempt to protect his brother, and did not sentence him, despite the prosecution's request for a 2 year and 4 month sentence. Salvatore Sci