The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Silvio Berlusconi

  • Berlusconi calls French president’s older wife ‘a beautiful mum’

    Berlusconi calls French president’s older wife ‘a beautiful mum’

    Gaffe-prone former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has joked about the nearly 25-year age gap between French President Emmanuel Macron and his older wife, calling her the leader’s “beautiful mum.”

    “We have a 39-year-old guy [as French president] with, however, good work experiences, and, above all, with a beautiful mum who has taken him by the arm ever since he was a boy,” Berlusconi said late Monday during a campaign event in Monza, near Milan.

    Brigitte Macron is 64, while the French president is 39.

    They started an affair when she was Macron’s high school teacher.

    Berlusconi’s girlfriend Francesca Pascale is 49 years his junior.

    The former premier was also tried for soliciting sex from a minor in the so-called bunga bunga affair, but was acquitted for lack of evidence.

    Berlusconi may however face another trial on charges of bribing defence witnesses in the case.

  • Berlusconi undergoes heart surgery

    Former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has been placed in intensive care after undergoing an operation to replace a defective heart valve.

    The procedure lasted four hours, Milan’s San Raffaele hospital said, giving no further details.

    But sources told Ansa news agency the operation had been a success.

    He is likely to take a month to recover.

    Berlusconi, 79, served as prime minister four times but has since been convicted of tax fraud and bribery, the BBC reports.

    He was admitted to hospital last week after suffering a heart attack his doctor said could have killed him.

    He is expected to remain in intensive care for another 48 hours.

    “Everything is okay guys, now I can speak more calmly,” an ally of Mr. Berlusconi, Gianni Letta, told AGI news agency.

    On Monday, Berlusconi wrote on his Facebook page he was “concerned” by the looming operation.

    “But I am also very moved by the very many demonstrations of appreciation, support and affection which I have received from everywhere, even from political rivals,” he added.

     

  • Court to hear Berlusconi fraud appeal

    Court to hear Berlusconi fraud appeal

    The European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) has agreed to hear an appeal filed by former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, against a tax fraud conviction, his lawyer has said.

    The 2012 conviction cost Berlusconi his seat in the Italian Senate and saw him banned from public office.

    He is currently serving community service for the conviction, the BBC reports.

    One of Italy’s richest men, the three-time prime minister dominated Italian politics and media for decades.

    He still heads the right-wing Forza Italia party and has been involved in efforts by the current Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, to reform the constitution.

    Berlusconi’s lawyer, Piero Longo, said the ECHR had agreed to examine claims that the 2012 trial was unfair.

    The 77-year-old was convicted of artificially inflating prices of film distribution rights bought by his company, Mediaset, to avoid taxes.

    Mr. Longo said there had not yet been a date set for the appeal.

    Several other legal objections raised by Berlusconi have been rejected by the Strasbourg-based ECHR in recent months.

    He was initially sentenced to four years in prison for the fraud, but this was later commuted to one year of community service, which he started in May.

    As part of that service, Berlusconi helps out once a week at a home for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

     

  • Italy ex-PM Berlusconi to do community service

    Italy ex-PM Berlusconi to do community service

    Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi must perform a year’s community service in a home for the elderly, a Milan court has ruled.

    The sentence followed his conviction last year for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of TV rights by his firm, Mediaset, in the 1990s.

    Berlusconi’s lawyers said they were “satisfied” that the ruling would allow him to remain politically active.

    The 77-year-old billionaire has been embroiled in a string of court cases.

    He was spared prison in the Mediaset case because the Italian legal system is lenient to the over-70s.The alternative to the community-service sentence would have been house arrest.

    Italian media reports say Berlusconi is likely to work one half-day a week at a home for elderly and disabled people near his estate outside Milan.

    The Ansa news agency identified the home as the Fondazione Sacra Famiglia, a church-run centre with 2,000 patients.

    Berlusconi will be subject to a curfew and banned from meeting people with criminal convictions – a measure which applies to at least one of his associates, AFP news agency reports.

    However, he will be free to travel to Rome from Tuesday to Thursday each week.

    He is still leader of Forza Italia, the main conservative opposition bloc, although he is barred from standing in next month’s European elections.

    He has always denied the charges against him, accusing left-wing judges of a witch-hunt aimed at neutralising him as a political leader.

     

    Last year he was convicted of paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his powers, which brought him a lifetime ban from public office. He was expelled from the Italian Senate.

    He is appealing against the underage sex conviction, in a trial known as the “Ruby” case.

    He is also on trial for allegedly bribing a centre-left senator to switch sides.

  • Italy PM faces confidence vote

    Italy’s Prime Minister Enrico Letta has been addressing parliament ahead of a crucial vote of confidence in his governing coalition.

    Mr. Letta told the Senate the collapse of his government could be fatal for the country.

    BBC reports that the vote was called after Silvio Berlusconi ordered ministers in his centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL) to leave the government.

    But some key PDL figures have defied him, saying they will back Mr. Letta.

    Mr. Letta earlier rejected the resignations of the five PDL ministers.

    Berlusconi, a former prime minister, has accused Mr. Letta of allowing his “political assassination through judicial means” – a reference to Berlusconi’s criminal conviction for tax fraud in August.

    “Even though I understand the risks that I am taking on, I have decided to put an end to the Letta government,” Berlusconi said in a letter to the weekly magazine Tempi.

    However, he appeared more circumspect on arrival at the Senate on Wednesday, saying: “We’ll see what happens. We’ll listen to Letta’s speech and then we’ll decide.”

    Addressing the Senate, Mr. Letta said Italy “runs a risk, a fatal risk” if his government were to fall.

    In an apparent break with Berlusconi, his deputy and party secretary Angelino Alfano said PDL MPs should back Mr. Letta in Wednesday’s confidence vote.

    “I am firmly convinced that our party as a whole should vote confidence in Letta,” said Mr. Alfano, who is also Italy’s interior minister.

     

  • Berlusconi rages at prison ruling

    Berlusconi rages at prison ruling

    Italy’s former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has broadcast an angry video message after his prison sentence for tax fraud was upheld by the country’s highest court.

    Berlusconi said he was the innocent victim of “an incredible series of accusations and trials that had nothing to do with reality.”

    The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office.

    BBC reports that Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age.

    While he is expected to serve out his sentence as house arrest, he has the option of asking to do community service instead, with the deadline for the application not expected to fall until mid-October.

    The ruling by Rome’s Court of Cassation, against which he cannot appeal, came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court.

    In an emotional nine-minute video, Berlusconi denounced the decision as “based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights.”

    “No-one can understand the onslaught of real violence that has been directed against me following an incredible series of accusations and trials that don’t have any foundation in reality,” he said.

    He described the more that 50 court cases he has faced as “genuine judicial harassment that is unmatched in the civilised world.”