Trials and allegations involving Silvio Berlusconi have been extensive and include abuse of office, bribery and corruption of police officers, judges and politicians, collusion, defamation, embezzlement, extortion, false accounting, mafia, money laundering, perjury, tax fraud, underage prostitution influence and witness tampering.
Allegations
Berlusconi was tried in Italian courts in several cases. The outcome for six of those cases were politically altered to end with "no conviction", because of laws passed by Berlusconi's parliamentary majority shortening the time limit for prosecution of various offences and making false accounting illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities. Berlusconi claimed that "this is a manifest judicial persecution, against which I am proud to resist, and the fact that my resistance and sacrifice will give the Italians a more fair and efficient judicial system makes me even more proud", and added that "789 prosecutors and magistrates took an interest in the politician Berlusconi from 1994 to 2006 with the aim of subverting the votes of the Italian people" citing statistics that he said have constituted a "calvary including 577 visits by police, 2,500 court hearings and 174 million euros in lawyers' bills paid by me". Berlusconi had always been able to afford top lawyers and publicists, for example Nicolas Sarkozy was one of his French top defenders. Some of his former prosecutors later joined the parliamentary opposition. Some of his attorneys are also members of parliament.
+Overview of legal issues for Silvio Berlusconi Status of trial Allegation Convictions Mediaset trial 2: on a personal tax evasion of €7.3 million committed in 1994–98 through illicit trade of movie rights between secret fictive companies.(First-instance: 4 years jail and 3 years public office ban; Appeal Court: 4 years jail and 5 years public office ban; Supreme Court: 4 years jail and 2 years public office ban) Acquittals Acquittal, due to a changed law All Iberian 2: false accounting.(acquittal, due to the new law on false accounting passed in April 2002 by the Berlusconi II Cabinet which had the effect of decriminalizing the offence of false accounting.) SME-Ariosto 2: false accounting.(acquittal, due to the new law on false accounting passed in April 2002 by the Berlusconi II Cabinet which had the effect of decriminalizing the offence.) Other acquittals SME-Ariosto 1: bribes to the judges Renato Squillante (600 million lira) and Filippo Verde (750 million lira), swaying them to rule in favor of Berlusconi in a court case deciding to whom IRI should sell the SME company.(First-instance: guilty of bribing Squillante but acquitted due to statute of limitations; Appeal Court: Acquitted for complicity in the crime; Supreme Court: Acquitted for complicity in the crime.) Bribery of the Guardia di Finanza (Arces process): Payment of 380 million lira in bribes to three officers of the Guardia di Finanza engaged in tax audits, convincing them to "turn the blind eye" against tax frauds committed by 4 Fininvest owned companies: Videotime (1989), Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (1991), Mediolanum (1992) and TELE+ (1994).(First-instance: 2 years 9 months jail; Appeal Court: statute of limitations for the first 3 cases, acquittal for the fourth (not proven); Supreme Court: full acquittal for all 4 cases; In 2010, the Supreme Court noted through its ruling in the Bribery of lawyer David Mills to commit perjury case, that his false testimony had resulted in an incorrect acquittal for the charges against Silvio Berlusconi in the Arces process. But when considering the statute of limitations now apply for all four charges in the case, the judicial system did not find it appropriate to reopen the case) Medusa Film company purchase: false accounting equal to 10bn lira (€5.2 million), which were secretly transferred to Berlusconi's private bank accounts in 1988.(First-instance: 1 year and 4 months imprisonment; Appeal Court: Full acquittal; Supreme Court: Full acquittal, as he was too rich to be aware of such small amounts) Macherio estate land acquisitions 2: embezzlement, tax evasion, false accounting for the company Idra.(Appeal Court: full acquittal for all three charges) Mediatrade investigation (Milan): tax evasion and embezzlement from TV-rights traded by the company Mediatrade in 1999–02; a subcase of Mediaset Trial 1+2.(Preliminary hearing: full acquittal; Supreme Court: full acquittal) Mediatrade investigation (Rome): €10 million tax evasion from TV-rights traded by the company Mediatrade in 2003–4; a subcase of Mediaset Trial 1+2.(Preliminary hearing: Statute of limitations for 2003 offences and full acquittal for 2004 offences; Supreme Court: appeal was rejected as inadmissible) Telecinco TV-channel (Spanish case): Violation of the antitrust law, money laundering, and tax fraud equal to 100bn lira (€52 million).(Spanish Supreme Court: full acquittal) Discharged RAI-Fininvest advertising cartel: Berlusconi was through his status as upcoming Prime Minister accused of extortion towards RAI in September 1993, in the attempt of convincing them to sign a cartel agreement on the advertising shares between RAI and the Fininvest TV networks, to get softer competition and higher prices.(Preliminary hearing: The judge ruled the case to be archived due to insufficient amounts of evidence) Drug trafficking: Tax bribery on Pay-TV: Mafia bombings of 1992–1993: Investigations dropped due to lack of evidence. Close associate Marcello Dell'Utri was convicted of collusion with the Mafia, but this was later overturned. Connection to the Mafia: Defendant together with Marcello Dell'Utri for money laundering. Saccà case: Bribery and attempted bribery. State flights: Abuse in the use of flight status. Defamation by use of TV-medium: Defamation aggravated by the use of the television medium. Trani investigation: Abuse of office for the President of the pressures on the AGCOM. Guilty of extinct crimes Time limits extinct crimes Lodo Mondadori: bribery of judges.(statute of limitation acquittal) All Iberian 1: 23 billion lira (€11.9 million) bribe to Bettino Craxi via an offshore bank account code-named All Iberian.(First-instance: 2 years 4-month jail; Appeal Court: acquitted since the statute of limitations expired before the appeal) Bribery of lawyer David Mills: to make a false testimony in the two processes All Iberian and Bribery of the Guardia di Finanza.(Statute of limitation acquittal) Abuse of office in the Bancopoli/Unipol affair: concerning the illegal publication of wiretapped conversations in a family newspaper in 2005.(First-instance: 1-year jail + €80,000 compensatory damage payment to Piero Fassino; Appeal Court: Acquittal due to statute of limitations, but upheld the compensatory payment.) Time limits extinct crimes, due to a changed law Lentini affair: false accounting.(guilty, but acquitted due to a reduced statute of limitations in a new false accounting law passed by the Berlusconi government) Fininvest financial statements in 1988–1992: false accounting and embezzlement.(guilty, but acquitted due to a reduced statute of limitations in a new false accounting law passed by the Berlusconi government) Fininvest consolidated financial statements: false accounting.(guilty, but acquitted due to a reduced statute of limitations in a new false accounting law passed by the Berlusconi government) Mediaset trial 1: on false accounting and embezzlement committed in 1988–94 for the company Fininvest SpA.(indicted in 2005, but in 2007, the charges were declined ahead of the first-instance court trial, due to statute of limitations) Amnesty extinct crimes Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic Lodge trial: committed perjury when he testified in a later libel court trial filed against three journalists in 1989, that he had only joined the P2 lodge shortly before it was revealed as illegal without even paying entry fee; which was contradicted by evidence that he had been a paying member for 3 years.(Appeal Court: guilty, but offense was pardoned by an amnesty law passed in 1989) Macherio estate land acquisitions 1: false accounting for the company Buonaparte.(guilty, but amnesty applied following the 1992 fiscal remission law) Ongoing trials Bribery of senators supporting the Prodi government: Sergio De Gregorio and other senators bribed in 2006, to topple the Prodi government.(First-instance: court trial began on 11 February 2014) Defamation against Antonio Di Pietro: who was accused during a 2008 election campaign of having obtained his educational degree thanks to the secret services.(In June 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled that the Italian constitution did not grant parliamentarians absolute immunity for spoken words during election campaigns. This ruling allow for Berlusconi's previously halted court case now to be re-opened by the Constitutional Court to judge the merits of the case. The case will however be suspended until the affiliated case against the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where two courts asked for annulment of its 22 September 2010 decree granting Berlusconi absolute parliamentary immunity, has been judged. On 18 July 2014, the Constitutional Court ruled the decree indeed was unconstitutional and annulled it; meaning that the civil court proceedings against Berlusconi now can continue.) Notes:
Completed trials Propaganda Due (P2) trial: False testimony (1989)
In 1981, a scandal arose after the police discovery of Licio Gelli's secret quasi-Masonic (freemason) lodge Propaganda 2 (P2), which aimed to change the Italian political system to a more authoritarian regime. The list of people involved in P2 included members of the secret services and some prominent characters from political arena, business, military and media. Silvio Berlusconi, who was then just starting to gain popularity as the founder and owner of Canale 5 TV channel, was listed as a member of P2.Proceedings of the parliamentary inquiry commission headed by Tina Anselmi The P2 lodge was dissolved by the Italian Parliament in December 1981 and a law was passed declaring similar organisations illegal, but no specific crimes were alleged against individual members of the P2 lodge. While the Italian Constitution had forbidden secret associations since 1948, Berlusconi later (in 1989) sued three journalists for libel for writing articles hinting at his involvement in financial crimes. In court, he declared that he had joined the P2 lodge "only for a very short time before the scandal broke" and "he had not even paid the entry fee". Such statements conflicted with the findings of the parliamentary inquiry commission appointed to investigate the lodge's activity, with material evidence, and even with previous testimony of Berlusconi, all of which proved that he had actually been a member of P2 since 1978 and had indeed paid 100,000 Italian liras (approximately equivalent to €300 today) as an entry fee. In 1990, the court of appeal of Venice found Berlusconi guilty of false testimony in front of the Court of Verona, however the court could not pass sentence as the offense had been pardoned by an amnesty passed in 1989.
Some political commentators claim that Berlusconi's electoral programme followed the P2 plan.
Bribery of lawyer David Mills (1999)