Berlusconi lawyer at centre of 'devastating corruption'

The reputation of the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, took another battering yesterday when a Milan court described the conviction of one of his close associates as climax of the largest corruption case in postwar Italy.

The judges described the successful case against Cesare Previti, a lawyer and a parliamentary deputy from Mr Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia party, as one of "devastating corruption", adding: "The picture that eventually emerges is certainly that of the biggest corruption in the history of the republic in Italy."

The formal written declaration is an acute embarrassment to Mr Berlusconi who took over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in June under a cloud because of the corruption allegations levelled against him.

Since then, Mr Berlusconi has been embroiled in controversy and a public spat with the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, after likening a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard. The judges' statement is sensitive because Mr Berlusconi and Mr Previti are co-defendants in a separate case where there are allegations that judges were bribed. The Prime Minister has only avoided appearing in the dock because the case against him has been suspended while he remains in office, because of an immunity law.

Yesterday's declaration concerns a different trial. Mr Previti was convicted in April and sentenced to 11 years in prison after a trial in which six other defendants were also found guilty. Mr Previti is appealing. The judges took three months to deliver their deliberations, and their document is more than 500 pages in length. The trial lasted three years and covered two cases. In one, Mr Previti and two other lawyers were accused of taking a 67bn-lire kickback (at the start of trial worth approximately £22m) from the heirs of the chemical company SIR to bribe three judges ruling on a case affecting the firm.

In the other case, the same three lawyers were accused of corrupting a judge so he would overturn a ruling that had gone in favour of the industrialist Carlo De Benedetti and against Mr Berlusconi for control of the publishing giant Mondadori. Thanks to the final ruling in Mr Berlusconi's favour, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore is now part of Mr Berlusconi's extensive media empire.

The judges highlighted the fact that Mr Previti received money from Fininvest, Mr Berlusconi's company, to "settle relations of an illicit nature strictly connected to the Mondadori case". Mr Berlusconi has always maintained he knew nothing of the payments and was acquitted under a statute of limitations on charges related to this allegation.

In the trial in which Mr Berlusconi and Mr Previti are co-defendants in Milan, they are accused of bribing judges to influence in Mr Berlusconi's favour a ruling on the sale of a former state-controlled food group, SME, in the 1980s.

While that trial goes ahead with Mr Previti as a defendant, proceedings were separately suspended for Mr Berlusconi because the parliament approved a government-backed law granting top officials immunity from prosecution while in office.