Saturday, March 09, 2013
Subject To Appeal, Ex PM Silvio Berlusconi Is Sentenced In Milan To One Year For Corruption
Posted by Peter Quennell
The New York Times reports on this, the first outcome out of three corruption cases..
The story is in line with many previous posts here on the popularity and the efficient and unbending nature of Italian law enforcement. This is a system that has had to contend with a string of corrupt politicians and three mafias, and is slowly but surely winning the wars against all of them.
Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister and dominant political figure in Italy, was convicted and sentenced on Thursday to one year in prison for his role in the publication of a wiretapped conversation in a newspaper his family owns.
The verdict, handed down in a Milan court, was the second conviction for Mr. Berlusconi, the leader of Italy’s main center-right political party, in the past five months. It promises to weaken his position further as negotiations begin later this month to form a governing coalition, after inconclusive national elections late last month in which his party, People of Liberty, ran a close second behind the Democratic Party.
After Thursday’s conviction, “it will be difficult for Mr. Berlusconi to have an institutional role in the next government, either in the Senate or in any other Italian institution “” he’s out of the game,” said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. “But in the Italian public opinion, there won’t be any difference,” he added. “The country is already divided between those who think he is a criminal and those who think he’s a victim. It’s been that way for 15 years.”
Comments
The main accused in this case is Berlusconi’s brother, Paolo, who owns the Milan newspaper “Il Giornale”. He got 2 years 6 months.
The charge is not exactly “corruption”, but disseminating investigation files covered by secret. The wiretappings were obtained and leaked through Berlusconi’s lawyers who managed to be parties in connected cases. They were passed illegaly to Paolo’s newspaper, then used to blackmail and strike down political opponents.
But this is only the first of three trial verdicts Berlusconi will be facing within a period of a month or so. He will almost certainly get about 4 years for a case of fiscal fraud withing the coming weeks. And he will be sentenced for another grave corruption case, plus a charge of illicit prostitution, within the next weeks too.
SB is after power and not really after money. He has made emough and is really not stingy and is sometimes quite generous! But one thing he cannot tolerate is opposition!
Once I was leisurely walking in Milan and suddenly noticed two young girls: they spoke briefly to each other and then one rand down to me and said, very fast, Vota Berlusconi!, and ran back to her post. I was wondering how SB has spread his messages to the masses.
But I was wondering about Mubarak’s granddaughter
Very interesting, Chami. Berlusconi certainly has a way of empowering young women, though it doesnt seem to me to be empowering in a good way. I doubt Meredith would have been taken in.
We have been through an extended period of college-age girls from Europe using our place as a NYC base. Mostly when we are not here, but there are times when we overlapped.
They all tried all the temptations and surfed the city confidently at night. But they all returned to college and got their heads down and now all are pretty well where Meredith would have been.
I think I mentioned this to you before and you surely knew it anyway. Women today exceed men at colleges in the US by as high as 60% to 40%.
I have a special reason for wanting women to do well. They are very good at managing integrative processes (and can make a ton of money that way) and can actually make constructive the roosters that are too many men.
The future of the planet is on something of a knife-edge these days, and it is skills women innately have that are vital to landing us on the good side.
Where next:
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