Silvio Berlusconi was indicted in Naples for the crime of corruption in the context of the proceeding on the alleged buying and selling of senators to bring down the Prodi government. The trial will take place in front of College A of the V criminal section of Naples, starting from 11 February 2014.
The ex-senator De Gregorio was also sentenced to 1 year and 8 months, after the request for a plea bargain accepted by the gup. Valter Lavitola also indicted. At the preliminary hearing, in the courtroom of the Court of Naples, the former director of Avanti had declared that he had given substantial sums of money to Sergio De Gregorio, but he had argued that the money came from the financing of his newspaper, both of which were partners, and that part of the money had previously been lent by De Gregorio to Lavitola himself.
Now it will therefore be a panel of judges to establish whether Silvio Berlusconi and Valter Lavitola are to be considered guilty. The investigation, which is based on the statements made last year by Lavitola, has had a decisive acceleration with the reconstructions provided by Sergio De Gregorio who confessed to the prosecutors Alessandro Milita and Henry John Woodcock, that he had accepted an "infamous pact ».
The transition to the center-right of the honorable Sergio De Gregorio, paid for three million euros, would in fact have served to bring down the government of Romano Prodi. De Gregorio himself told prosecutors that he received the money from Berlusconi through Valter Lavitola.
