Italy's senate approves law to "save" Berlusconi from trial

Jun 18, 2008, 12:12 GMT

Rome - Italy's Senate approved Wednesday a controversial law branded by the opposition as 'Save the Premier' because it paves the way for the suspension of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's corruption trial.

The law, which is part of a security package, was approved by 160 votes for and 11 against, with senators from the main centre-left opposition parties abandoning the Senate hall in protest.

The measure was propounded by Berlusconi's conservative allies, who presented it, as a means to help Italy's overburdened judiciary clear a trial-backlog so it can concentrate on more serious cases.

It envisages the suspension for a year of trials for alleged crimes committed before mid-2002 with the exception of those involving violence, Mafia-related offences, and those carrying a jail sentence of more than 10 years.

But the opposition say it is tailor-made to force the suspension of a trial in Milan, where Berlusconi is accused of ordering payment in 1997 of some 600,000 dollars to his co-defendant, British lawyer David Mills, in exchange for false testimony at two Berlusconi trials in the 1990s.

Both Berlusconi and Mills, the estranged husband of Britain's Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, deny the charges.

'He (Berlusconi) could have behaved as a statesman and a person respectful of the fate of democracy in the country which he is governing,' said Anna Finocchiaro, Senate whip for the centre-left Democratic Party, said Wednesday.

'It seems he didn't want to, because of fear and certainly prejudice,' she added, commenting on the government's decision to add the law as an amendment to the security package.

According to Italian media a verdict in the Milan trial, which started in March 2007, is near.

Berlusconi, a billionaire media baron, has been repeatedly accused of using public office - he was premier from 2001-2006 before being re-elected in April - to protect his private interests.

But the premier this week dismissed the latest accusations reprising his standard defence: that 'extreme leftist' magistrates have mounted 'fictional trials' against him as part of a political vendetta.

He also proposed reintroducing a controversial immunity bill that would shield the country's top state office-holders from prosecution.

Also this week, Berlusconi's lawyer made a formal request for the removal of the Milan trial's presiding judge, Elisabetta Gandus. The lawyers say the judge is biased against Berlusconi.