“The real Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi but communist prosecutors and communist judges in Milan who have attacked him again and again since he entered politics and decided to attack the power of the communists,” an angry Berlusconi said on television on Tuesday night.The comment in a telephone call to the show from his home, was his first public reaction to a ruling by a Milan court hours earlier which upheld a conviction against British lawyer David Mills for accepting a bribe from Berlusconi in 1997. Mills is appealing that verdict, which one of Berlusconi’s lawyers called “diabolical,” to Italy’s highest court. Berlusconi will be tried separately in that case. “Is Silvio Berlusconi really the most criminal businessman in the history of the world,” said Berlusconi, who has long accused Italy’s magistrature of being politically biased.
He also branded the television show he called from his sickbed -- political sources say he is suffering from scarlet fever -- “a festival of slander and falsehoods financed by the taxpayer.”
Berlusconi has been in high combative gear since Italy’s top court this month ruled his temporary protection from prosecution while he holds office, until then guaranteed by a law passed by his government, violated the constitution. That ruling meant a number of corruption trials against the 73-year-old prime minister that had been suspended by the law -- which critics denounced as tailor made for his judicial woes -- will either resume where they left off or start again.
One trial, which involved the acquisition of TV rights by Mediaset, his television empire, is due to resume on Nov. 16. Prosecutors say Mediaset bought the rights at an inflated price in the 1990s from two offshore companies controlled by Berlusconi, who is accused of tax fraud and false accounting in that case.
Berlusconi, a billionaire who entered politics in 1993 and his now heading his third government, has said he will attend the trials -- which he does not have to do under Italian law -- and help his lawyers in his own defense.
