10 July 2008

It’s not possible to lie all the time

In the article on 27 June I wrote that on 7 July a representative of Italia dei Valori would have followed the hearing of the Mills trial, just as I did for the Spartacus trial. This is the resulting report in which you can follow the interview with Nicolò Ghedini, Silvio Berlusconi’s lawyer and Silvio Berlusconi’s Parliamentarian.
”Berlusconi-Mills trial. The Prime Minister is on trial for corruption in judicial acts and risks a 6 year prison sentence. In today’s hearing the deposition of a defence consultant who is trying to explain the movement of money through Berlusconi’s offshore companies.

Daniele Martinelli: We are in the Milan Tribunal. Behind these doors the hearing is going on in the Mills trial that has Silvio Berlusconi as a defendant. It’s not possible to go in with the TV cameras, that has been forbidden, thus it is not possible to record the images, nor to record the presentation by the Prosecutor. The hearing started at about 11 am. It’s now 1:20 pm so about two and a half hours have gone by. Avvocato Ghedini has come out. He is the Parliamentarian who is directly concerned with the Prime Minister’s case. He has given some interviews, but we are still waiting to have some news.

Here is the judge Nicoletta Gandus, challenged or rather refused by Berlusconi. Obviously the move is useful in lengthening the time frame of the trial and bringing nearer the statute of limitations and even the annulment by way of the “lodo Alfano”, a “lodo” that smacks of being unconstitutional that has already been approved by the Senate and it has been put above all other priorities in the Lower House. A “lodo” that gives immunity from any crime to the President of the Republic, the President of the Chamber, the President of the Senate and obviously the President of the Council of Ministers, the only defendant.

Ghedini: I hope that our majority changes this because obviously to remove resources from the justice system right now is a big mistake. I have always said that the magistracy must have great resources and must have absolute independence.

As you have heard, the Parliamentarian who is Berlusconi’s defence lawyer criticizes what the majority that he himself represents is about to do, that is to make a 40 % cut in the funding for the justice system. But let’s try to get near him.

Martinelli: Excuse me Avvocato Ghedini. The Mills trial, this affair of the trial is connected in a way to the fact that Berlusconi talked about the “red togas”, but we rightly have to remember that it all started with the denunciation of the English tax authorities who transferred to the Italian tax authorities.
Ghedini: It’s all part of an investigation not by the English tax authorities, but of an affair that is much older about rights. Then there’s a transmission that rightly the prosecutors weighed up and started an investigation. I believe that this investigation should have been stopped after the examination of the further evidence that we brought.

Martinelli: But you are in a great hurry to approve first the lodo Alfano and the block on trials to avoid a verdict?
Ghedini: No, you see, here they are doing everything in a hurry to finish the trial. We are happy because we are convinced that we will be absolved. The “lodo” is instead a political matter in which there is a wish to remove a reason for criticism and political polemics.

Martinelli: But what’s the reason for blocking all the trials before 31 June 2002?
Ghedini: That was a choice of the people who presented it and it is connected to the statute of limitations. You know that the statute of limitations in the new regulations, with the most recent laws, is extinguished in 6 years in “atti interruttivi”. Now let me go and eat….

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Justice