Berlusconi proved to have bribed judge but avoids prison

Silvio Berlusconi, the Houdini of European politics, escaped jail last night on charges of bribing Roman judges. At the end of the Prime Minister's trial in Milan, judges cleared him of a specific charge for which prosecutors had demanded eight years.

Silvio Berlusconi, the Houdini of European politics, escaped jail last night on charges of bribing Roman judges. At the end of the Prime Minister's trial in Milan, judges cleared him of a specific charge for which prosecutors had demanded eight years.

The court ruled that a separate charge of paying a $430,000 (£224,000) bribe to a judge was proved, but he escaped conviction because too much time, more than the limit of seven and a half years, had elapsed since the charges were filed.

"He's got away by the skin of his teeth again," said Antonio di Pietro, a political opponent. Mr Berlusconi, who appeared only three times at the trial, was not in court to hear the verdict. But it was not the first time that the Prime Minister has avoided conviction thanks to the statute of limitations.

The messy verdict was far from being a full exculpation of Italy's wealthiest man and the first Italian prime minister to take office with criminal charges pending.

Oliviero Diliberto, a Communist leader, said: "The sentence of absolution for the crime of corruption, caused by the statute of limitations, means he's guilty. It would therefore be reasonable for him to resign. But I doubt Berlusconi sees it that way."

The Prime Minister said: "Better late than never."

The judgment came almost exactly 10 years after his first government collapsed when judges started to investigate him for corruption. The three-judge bench cleared him of the specific charge of bribing judges to block the takeover of a state-owned conglomerate by a business rival for lack of evidence. But on the more general accusation of having put two Roman judges on his company's payroll to corrupt them, a charge painstakingly documented by prosecutors through payments in and out of Swiss bank accounts, they found the charge proved. But for this offence, termed "simple corruption", the statute of limitations had expired. The judges had no alternative but to absolve him.

"There's always that doubt; the odour of corruption will follow him around," said Professor James Walston, a political scientist at the American University at Rome. "It won't change things politically. He will continue as he has done since becoming Prime Minister. But he will continue to have that bad smell. But his supporters don't mind. And Italians don't really care. A small number care passionately, but not the majority."

An impression of widespread public apathy was confirmed by the opinion poll in Corriere della Sera yesterday which showed support for the governing centre-right coalition climbing to 43 per cent, well up on its historic low less than a month ago of 35 per cent, and reflecting satisfaction at a tax cut Mr Berlusconi just announced. The corruption case which concluded yesterday in Milan had its origins in 1985, nearly a decade before Mr Berlusconi launched himself into politics. The media magnate and his lawyer Cesare Previti had been accused of paying Roman judges to induce them to block the takeover of SME, a state food conglomerate, by Carlo de Benedetti, owner of La Repubblica newspaper and a business rival of Mr Berlusconi. In 1995, the lover of another Berlusconi lawyer told Roman investigators she had seen Mr Previti hand large amounts of cash to a judge called Renato Squillante during a boat trip on the Tiber. Squillante and another judge were arrested the following year.

When Mr Berlusconi became Prime Minister in 2001, he tried to avoid the Milan court which, he said, was run by communists bent on hounding him from office. He passed a law enabling trials to be switched to another judiciary if the judges are biased, he decriminalised false accounting, and he granted himself and other officials immunity from prosecution.

Each measure was ultimately rejected, but so much time was wasted in the process that ultimately he got away scot-free.