Very legitimate suspicion
Yet another new law may get Silvio Berlusconi (and friend) off the hook
AFTER weeks of bitter argument, on November 5th Italy's parliament passed a controversial bill to reform part of the penal code. Its likely effect is that a judges-bribing trial in Milan, in which Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's right-wing prime minister, and his close friend, Cesare Previti, are defendants, will drag on for years. So will two other judges-bribing trials in Milan, in which Mr Previti is a defendant and the verdict imminent. In one of these cases, Mr Berlusconi's companies were accused of being the source of money allegedly used to bribe the judges, but the charges against him were quashed last year under a statute of limitation.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Very legitimate suspicion”
From the November 9th 2002 edition
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