In arrivo provvedimenti giudiziari contro Berlusconi e Mills?

[Ezechiele (POL)]

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The Times March 06, 2006

A race against time for Italian prosecutors

From Richard Owen in Rome

IN THE culmination of an Italian legal drama that has convulsed his career and that of his wife, David Mills will learn this week whether he and Silvio Berlusconi are to be sent for trial on charges of perjury and bribery.

Mr Mills was in talks this weekend with Federico Cecconi, his Italian lawyer, to prepare his defence. One option is for Signor Cecconi or Niccolo Ghedini, Signor Berlusconi’s lawyer, to ask for Mr Mills to be questioned again, a tactic that could buy time.

Fabio de Pasquale and Alfredo Robledo completed their 15,000-page dossier of allegations against Mr Mills and Signor Berlusconi on February 16 and lodged it with the court. The prosecutors claim that Mr Mills was paid a bribe by the Italian leader to give “false testimony” in corruption trials in the 1990s. Mr Mills denies this.

The defence has 20 days in which to react to the prosecution dossier, a period that ends tomorrow, when the prosecutors will fomally ask the judge to charge the two men. The judge then has a further 30 days in which to decide whether to lay charges and set the trial date. The prosecutors expect a swift decision.

Signor Berlusconi, who faces the voters’ verdict on his prime ministership on April 9-10, has accused the prosecutors of seeking to influence the election, something that they deny. They say that they are following “the logic of the legal timetable” and want to secure a conviction before time runs out in February 2008 under Italy’s statute of limitations.

In his statement at the weekend announcing his separation from Tessa Jowell, Mr Mills alleged that the prosecutors were “feeding information to the press . . . with the intention of trying the case in the media rather than by due process and making life so impossible for him that he will seek to bring the proceedings to a quick end by making an admission”.

The prosecutors, who have given background briefings but no on-the-record interviews — despite some claims to the contrary — deny this. They say they have no electoral agenda and no knowledge of how documents from their dossier have been leaked.

They also deny reports that they have directly discussed plea bargaining with Mr Mills or his lawyers. Signor Cecconi has told Italian reporters that plea-bargaining was “not excluded”, but also denied that negotiations were in progress.

Italian legal experts say that lawyers for Mr Mills and Signor Berlusconi are counting on the “probability” that even if their clients are charged they will never be convicted because the prosecution will run out of time. The prosecutors hope the judge will set a preliminary hearing for May, allowing the trial proper to get under way in June.

The prosecution would then have a year and a half to secure a conviction. The prosecutors maintain this schedule is tight but feasible, but legal sources say that it would amount to an unusually rapid trial by Italian standards. Convictions are in any case followed by an appeals process.

The prosecutors’ timetable may slip, however, because they say they have still not yet received all the documents they need on Mr Mills’s complex financial dealings from a Metropolitan Police raid last month on his office and home.

Signor Berlusconi has been found guilty of corruption on several occasions but has either been acquitted on appeal or has escaped conviction because time has run out under the statute of limitations.

[Bigas]

Ormai le notizie le apprendiamo dall'estero: questa è sulla home page del sito del Times di Londra.

Speriamo di no, visto che sto paese di rincoglioniti poi pensa che e' davvero perseguitato e lo rivota. Oppure leggono tutti i giornali stranieri in inglese e si sono fatti una vera opinione dei fatti? mah...

Cristiano

[anton]

SIAMO DIVENTATI LO ZIMBELLO DI TUTTO IL MONDO.....
CHE VERGOGNA

[Airbus]

c'è ancora chi dice che sono io che mi invento le cose sull'estero....

da dopodomani sarà interessante.... anche se sineramente quando sono via leggere le notizie italiane mi fa veramente disgusto e mi rovina la giornata serena...e ogni cosa che vedo non riesco a non fare un paragone con l'italia e a venirmi il nervoso (evidentemente sono ancora troppo legato al mio paese, dovrei strafregarmene totalmente)