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.
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