Silvio faces fraud trial
Berlusconi's back in court
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The case stems from a four-year investigation into multimillion-dollar movie and TV rights deals with several U.S. majors, including Paramount, between 1994 and 1999. After inflating the actual value of these acquisitions, Mediaset funds were illegally diverted to offshore companies for tax evasion and other purposes, prosecutors charge.
Berlusconi, who lost national elections in April, will stand trial in Milan in November, along with 12 other defendants, among them Mediaset CEO Fedele Confalonieri and British lawyer David Mills, who is the estranged husband of British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.
The case is the latest in a string of trials faced by Berlusconi, a conservative who claims he is the target of political persecution on the part of a leftist judiciary. A center-left coalition currently runs the country.
"It was a predictable decision," commented Berlusconi's lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, who complained that crucial witnesses for the defense had not been heard.
The 69-year-old TV tycoon-turned-politician faces up to six years in jail if found guilty. Berlusconi has avoided incarceration in at least seven previous trials. While he was initially ruled guilty four times, verdicts were subsequently overturned on appeal or the statute of limitations applied and charges were dropped.
In this case it also appears unlikely that Berlusconi could end up behind bars due to statute of limitations laws, according to Italian commentators.
In a statement, Mediaset denied any crimes and said its executives had always acted correctly.
Mills, accused in two previous related cases of allegedly receiving a $600,000 kickback from Mediaset in exchange for not revealing details of its offshore financial activities, told Britain's Channel 4 news that he's innocent and reiterated that his ex-wife, a close ally of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, had nothing to do with the case.
