Silvio Berlusconi Trial: Prosecutors Seek 5-Year Term

MILAN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors on Wednesday asked a court to sentence former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to five years in prison on charges of paying British lawyer David Mills a $600,000 bribe to lie about Berlusconi's business interests.

Mills, husband of former British cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, has had a 4-1/2-year jail sentence for taking the bribe dropped as a statute of limitations took effect.

Should Berlusconi be found guilty, the verdict would be little more than symbolic as his lawyers would appeal and the case would have to be dropped because the alleged crime dates back to 1997 - and would also fall under a statute of limitations.

Berlusconi, 75, is also trial on charges of tax fraud and of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, and is due to go on trial on March 15 on charges of revealing confidential information in a case related to a 2005 banking scandal. (Reporting By Sara Rossi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Earlier on HuffPost:

Comments

[Mrs Robinsons]

06:37 PM on 02/15/2012

Its a little bit Martha Stewartesque...
fast business deals..
sweeping the inconvenient under a rug..
without even a thought..
while stoking your irons in another fire at the same time...
we are over extended and have lost site of
our self control.

Jail is another place to get clean, I guess...
a place cooler than the desert..
to repent and unwind...

maybe they should send him to a monastery..
I think he has some untapped religion in him.

[CraigVale]

04:02 PM on 02/15/2012

I knew the story would prove to be too good to be true !

[gon4gd]

01:09 PM on 02/15/2012

Judging by the picture he dyes his scalp along with the hair.

[BrutusHonestus]

12:46 PM on 02/15/2012

With the speed at which the Italian judicial system works, he will be 85 years old (or dead) before this case ever even goes to trial.

[Howard53545]

09:33 AM on 02/15/2012

Does not matter, this rich dude owns the jails.

[hungryaardvark]

09:08 AM on 02/15/2012

When the criminals own the guys who write the laws.....