Silvio Berlusconi’s tax prison sentence upheld by supreme court

ROME: Italy’s supreme court yesterday upheld a jail sentence against Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud in a devastating blow to the former prime minister that could throw the country’s fragile coalition govern- ment into crisis.

After a three-day hearing, the five judges of the supreme court rejected Berlusconi’s final appeal against the verdict handed down by two lower courts in Milan which sentenced the media mogul to four years in jail – commuted to one year under an amnesty.

But the top judges ordered a judicial review by a Milan court of the second part of his sentence, a five-year ban from public office. This will enable him to remain as a senator and as leader of his centre-right People of Freedom Party (PDL) for the moment.

He was convicted over the fraudulent purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset television empire. It was the 76year-old’s first definitive conviction in up to 30 court cases on charges ranging from fraud and corruption to having sex with an underaged prostitute.

He accuses leftist magistrates of relentlessly trying to remove him from politics since he stormed on to the scene in 1994.

The verdict could not only end his 20-year domination of Italian politics but destabilise the three-month-old government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta and send tremors across the euro zone.

The bloc’s third largest economy is ruled by an uneasy and fractious coalition of Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and Berlusconi’s PDL.

The former premier has repeatedly said the government must not fall whatever the verdict but PDL hawks had called for a mass walkout of its ministers and public protests including blocking motorways with demonstrations if he was convicted.