The black secrets of mafia man called Berlusconi 3/4Berlusconi criminal life and trials

Lies about the P2 lodge (perjury)

In 1990 the Venice Court of Appeals found Berlusconi guilty of giving false testimony under oath before the Tribunal of Verona in relation to his membership in the P2. However, the crime was pardoned by the amnesty of 1989. Questioned under oath, Berlusconi stated "I do not remember the exact date of my joining the P2.

However, I remember that it was a little bit before the scandal …. I have never paid a membership fee and this was never asked of me." However, Berlusconi was a P2

member in 1978 (The scandal broke out in 1981.) He had paid his membership fee.

The Venice Court of Appeals wrote: "The Judicial Panel holds that the defendant's declarations do not reflect the truth …. They are in conflict with the findings of the

Anselmi commission and the defendant's own testimony heard before a judge in

Milan and never disputed …. Therefore it follows that Berlusconi has declared a falsehood." He has given "false testimony." He has "fully conformed to the objective and subjective characteristics of the crime of perjury." However, "the crime is nullified by virtue of amnesty."

Bribes to the Guardia di Finanza [Treasury Police] (bribery)

First trial: convicted and sentenced to 2 year and 4 months for the 21 billion lire handed over abroad to Bettino Craxi through the foreign All Iberian account.

Appeal: the case is dismissed due of expiration of the statute of limitations. However,

"no evidence of the innocence of the any of the defendants emerges from the trial records."

Supreme Court of Appeals: dismissal upheld with a sentence of payment of legal costs.

The decision reads: "The business and financial dealings leading up to the financing abroad of the Northern Holding temporary account[Craxi] through the account entitled All Iberian were effected in Italy by the leading managers of the group

Fininvest spa with the relevant cooperation of Berlusconi as owner and president ….

The defendant's non-involvement does not emerge from the trail evidence."

All Iberian 2 (accounting fraud)

Trial adjourned until the European High Court of Justice and the Italian Constitutional

Court rule on the legality of the new business-crime laws approved by the Berlusconi government. If the motions raised by various courts are struck down, the crime will be dismissed

Medusa Cinema (accounting fraud)

First trial: convicted and sentenced to 1 year and 4 months in prison. (10 billion lire in off-the-books funds from the purchase are deposited into a series of bearer accounts of Silvio Berlusconi.)

Appeal: acquittal for insufficient evidence. (See comma 2 art. 530). According to the panel of judges, Berlusconi is so rich that he might not have noticed how - in the course of the purchase - his colleague Carlo Bernasconi (convicted) deposited 10 billion lire for him off-the-books. The judges write: "The multitude of the bank accounts attributable to the Berlusconi family and the well-known large dimensions of his wealth imply that it was impossible for him to realize both this increase and, above all, the sources of the increase."

Supreme Court of Appeals: appeals acquittal upheld.

The Macherio Lands (embezzlement, fiscal fraud, accounting fraud)

First trial: acquittal (for 4.4 billion lire paid off the books to the owner of the land around the Villa of Macherio, the residence of second-wife Veronica and their three children). Case dismissed for the accounting fraud of the two firms (statue of limitations), with which "undoubtedly Berlusconi took part in."

Appeal: acquittal upheld for embezzlement and fiscal fraud. Acquittal also for one count of accounting fraud.The second count was upheld, but was pardoned in an amnesty.

Supreme Court of Appeals: On-going.

The Lentini Case (accounting fraud)

First trial: the crime (10 billion lire paid off the books to Torino Calcio football club for the purchase of the player, Luigi Lentini) was dismissed thanks to a new law on accounting fraud.

Appeal: On-going.

Consolidato gruppo Fininvest (accounting fraud)

On the basis of the new law on accounting fraud, Judge Fabio Paparella dismissed the case concerning the 1.5 trillion lire in alleged off-the-books funds accumulated by the Berlusconi group in 64 off-shore firms of the All Iberian group (part B of Fininvest).

Marco Travaglio and Peter Gomez – Berlusconi – 2/July/2003.

 State prosecuting attorney Francesco Greco presented the Supreme Court of Appeals with his motion that the lack of a preliminary hearing prevented him from raising objections against the new law. Greco's objections are based on its unconstitutionality and its conflict with new European Union rules on business crimes as well as with the

OCSE treaty

The Mondadori Court Award (bribery of judges)

The crime, for which Cesare Previti was convicted in the first trial, was dismissed by the Milan Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Appeals through their concession of general mitigating circumstances.

The Supreme Court of Appeals cited one of their motives: "the emphasis [for conceding general mitigating circumstances] placed upon the current social and individual circumstances of the subject [Berlusconi had become prime minister], having been evaluated by the Court as decisive, does not appear in any way incongruous …."

Sme-Ariosto (bribery of judges)

The trial of the prime minister was separated from the main trial because of the continual "institutional impediments" raised by Berlusconi and the resulting postponements of hearings. A parallel trial was instituted, but Berlusconi had the trial adjourned until he leaves office or sine die (indefinitely) in case of his re-election or nomination to another governmental office through the stipulations of the Maccanico Law, which he had passed in record time. This happened after 40 months of trial and right before the prosecutor's address, the summing-up statements, and the verdict.

Sme-Ariosto (accounting fraud)

This charge against Berlusconi for the money allegedly given to several judges was separated from the main trial as a consequence of the enactment of new business laws.

The trial has been adjourned until the European High Court of Justice rules on whether the new regulations clash with Union guidelines. However, even if the High

Court rules against he regulations, the trial has been blocked by the Maccanico Law, as are all the other on-going trials against Silvio Berlusconi.

Television Rights (accounting fraud and fiscal fraud)

Preliminary investigations by the State Attorneys' office in Milan under Alfredo

Robledo and Fabio De Pasquale were conducted into the activities of numerous managers of the Mediaset group, its president Fedele Confalonieri, and its owner

Silvio Berlusconi. According to the prosecutors' charges, Berlusconi has in fact remained as de facto supreme head of the company even after his entry into politics in

1994. The particular object of the investigation is a series of financial dealings for the purchase of the screen and television rights for films of major American studios that involved rapid, roundabout passages of the rights from one foreign company to another of the Berlusconi group. The alleged result was to raise the price of the purchased rights artificially as a way of cashing in on the fiscal incentives of the

Tremonti Law. This was a law passed by the first Berlusconi government in order to exempt the businesses' re-invested profit money from taxes. The prosecutors estimated this alleged accounting fraud as about ¤ 180 million in 1994.

Television Station Telecinco (violation of antitrust laws and fiscal fraud in Spain)

Madrid anti-corruption judge Baltasàr Garzòn Real requested the Italian government to try Berlusconi or, as an alternative, to deprive him of immunity so that he could be tried in Spain. He received no answer. For this reason the state anti-corruption prosecutor Carlo Castresana requested Garzòn to address the Italian authorities again in May, 2002. In Spain Berlusconi - along with Marcello Dell'Utri and other Fininvest managers - is charged with having taken virtually total control of the television station

Telecinco, control violating the Spanish antitrust law, which had fixed the ceiling at

25% of the shares in the years involved.

Mafia (outside accessory to Mafia activities and money laundering)

The investigation has been closed in Palermo at the request of the prosecutor's office because of expiration of the time limit granted.

Bombings in 1992 and 1993 (accessory to mass violence)

The investigations by the prosecutors of Florence and Caltanissetta into the alleged

"hidden-faced instigators" of the bombings in 1992 (of Falcone and Borsellino) and in

1993 (in Milan, Florence, and Rome) were closed due the expiration of the time allowed for the investigation. However, on November 14, 1998, Judge Giuseppe

Soresina pointed out how Berlusconi and Dell'Utri allegedly "maintained a relationship that was not merely episodic with criminal elements who can be linked to the program of violence that took place." This points to the Corleone mob that has guided the Cosa Nostra for the last 20 years and committed hundreds of murders and a half dozen bombings. Soresina adds that there is "an objective convergence of the political interests of Cosa Nostra with some qualified programmatic lines of the new formation [Forza Italia]: articolo 41 bis [on prison conditions], legislation on state witness protection, and the recovery of the concept of guarantees for trials that was purposely overlooked by the legislation of the early 1990s." He then adds that, over the course of the investigation "the initial hypothesis [of the involvement of Berlusconi and dell'Utri in the mass violence] has remained and, if anything, increased in plausibility." Unfortunately, the "time limit for the preliminary investigation" has expired before it was possible to gather further evidence.

Caltanissetta Judge Giovanni Battista Tona wrote "The records of the file have amply demonstrated support for the various possibilities of contact between men belonging to Cosa Nostra and business groups controlled in varying degrees by the current objects of investigation [Berlusconi and Dell'Utri]. This alone legitimates the hypothesis that, considering the prestige of Berlusconi and Dell'Utri, they could have been identified by the men of the organization as eventual new conversation partners."

However, "the fragility of the whole picture of the circumstances demands that the investigation be closed." Finally, there is the sentence of the Caltanissetta Assize

Court of Appeals of June 23, 2001, which convicted 37 Mafia chieftains for the

Capaci  bombing.

In the chapter of the sentence explicitly entitled "The contacts between Salvatre Riina and Hon. Dell'Utri and Berlusconi," we read that it is proven that the Mafia devised "a fruitful relationship at least in an economic terms" with the two.

It was so fruitful that in 1992 "Cosa Nostra's political project in the realm of institutions aimed at creating new balances and new alliances with the new referents for politics and economics " This is to say "to bring the state to negotiations or to allow for a political exchange that, through new relationships, would insure - as in the past - the cooperation that the Cosa Nostra had benefited from."