Silvio Berlusconi

"Landep News"

Silvio Berlusconi

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been cleared on Tuesday by a judge in Milan of charges in a fraud and embezzlement case related to his private broadcaster Mediaset, which is a rare moment when the embattled politician wins a case. The judge ordered that Berlusconi’s son Pier Silvio, who is deputy chairman, and Fedele Confalonieri, the chairman of Mediaset, to stand on trial in the same case. The case is centered on the accusation that Mediaset acquired television rights at inflated prices in deals that resulted, in the opinion of the prosecutors, in a gain of 35 million euro and 8 million euro tax fraud.
The prosecution announced that it would appeal the decision of the court to clear Berlusconi. The trial against his son and Confalonieri will start on December 22. Mediaset issued a statement in which it expressed its surprise at the decision to judge its executives.
Even though he was cleared, Berlusconi still faces two separate cases of corruption and tax fraud linked to his business empire, and another trial where he is accused of paying for sex with an underage prostitute and of abuse of power.
Berlusconi admitted that he was not satisfied with the sentence, because he was accused of an absurdity. Berlusconi, who had denied all accusations said that he had been cleared of all charges in 25 trials.
The prime minister said it was a scandal that the prosecutors accuse him of all sorts of things only to be cleared by the judges. His lawyers said that even though he was cleared in this case, they still believed that the prime minister was being hounded by the judges in Milan.
The personal life of the prime minister and the fact that he is involved in so many trials has lost him a lot of political friends, making it compulsory that he be in the position of needing a vote of confidence in the parliament every year.
Last week, his government barely passed the vote of confidence, but the news that he got off the hook made the people in Rome turn the civic action called “Occupy Rome,” a copy of the American “Occupy the Wall Street,” turn into a riot that engulfed the center of Rome.
Here, the people mixed the general protest against the global financial policies with their frustrations against the rule of Berlusconi, which is expected to leave Italy defenseless in case of a new wave of economic crisis.

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