Court insists Silvio Berlusconis bribery trial must continue next month

By Nick Squires in Rome Published: 6:03PM GMT twenty-seven February 2010

Silvio Berlusconi, right, is acused of charity a �370,000 cheat to British taxation counsel David Mills, left Photo: AP

The Italian budding minister"s lawyers argued that the hearing in Milan should be halted until the Supreme Court releases a minute reason of given it suspended a together box in to Mr Mills" acceptance of the bribe. It is prevalent for Italian courts to check edition such judgments until dual or 3 months after cases have concluded.

Mr Berlusconi"s hearing was shelved usually until Mar 26, nonetheless as with prior hearings in this and alternative cases, he is doubtful to crop up in justice in person.

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The 73-year-old billionaire is indicted of profitable the backhander in sell for Mr Mills, the disloyal father of Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, giving fake justification during dual separate trials in the late 1990s. Both men repudiate any wrongdoing.

On Thursday the Supreme Court in Rome ruled that even though Mr Mills had been found guilty last year of receiving the cheat and condemned to 4 and a half years in jail, the box should be forsaken given it had timed out underneath a 10-year government of limitations.

Mr Berlusconi has been caught in allegations of corruption, taxation semblance and fake accounting given he initial entered the domestic locus sixteen years ago and has regularly confirmed that he is the plant of a politically-motivated magician track by allegedly Left-wing judges and magistrates.

He has managed to stay one step forward of the law: he was clear in a little trials, whilst unconstrained delays, adjournments and authorised wrangles meant that others lapsed underneath the government of limitations.

He renewed his attacks in even stronger than normal denunciation on Friday, contrast Italian judges to the Taliban and accusing them of subverting democracy.

Referring to legislation being drawn up by his centre-Right bloc to shift the legal system, he said: "I don"t think it will greatfully the Taliban in the judiciary."

He told a domestic convene in Turin: "Sovereignty no longer belongs to the people but to prosecutors."

He pronounced the allegations that he bribed Mr Mills were "an invention, pristine and simple, absurd."

"The hearing goes forward, and I wish to come out of it with a full acquittal."

But the personality of an antithesis party, Antonio Di Pietro, said: "If Berlusconi was unequivocally trusting he would mount hearing instead of using afar and stability to conflict and insult the law similar to a tyrant in a light opera."

Another antithesis MP, Massimo Donadi, pronounced Mr Berlusconi had been perplexing to "flee from justice" for years, adding: "His fight opposite the magistrates has been a disaster for Italian justice, for the country, and for the citizens."