Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to 4 years in prison for tax fraud in Mediaset TV rights trial. The penalty is higher than that requested by the public prosecutor (3 years and 8 months). Three years instead for Frank Agrama, the businessman of Egyptian origin indicated by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office as the Cavaliere's "hidden partner" in the alleged illegal sale of television and cinematographic rights abroad. The president of Mediaset, Faithful Confalonieri, was instead acquitted for prescription (prosecutors had asked for 3 years and 4 months).
Berlusconi was also sentenced todisqualification from holding public office for three years, but the measure is not immediately enforceable because it is a first instance sentence. The judges also ordered a payment of 10 million euros by the defendants sentenced to the Revenue Agency.
Berlusconi's reaction was very harsh: “I was sure I was acquitted of an accusation totally out of touch with reality. This is a sentence that I can safely define as political, incredible and even intollerab”: The prime minister then ruled out any connection between the sentence and the step backwards in politics.
"Another proof of judicial fury against the president Silvio Berlusconi - commented the secretary of the PDL, Angelino Alfano -. An unexpected and incomprehensible sentence with hyperbolic main and accessory penalties. We are certain that the next levels of judgment will prove him right and we hope that these judgments will come quickly".
Of a completely different opinion, the leader of the IDV, Antonio Di Pietro: “All the knots come home to roost. Despite all the ad personam laws that Berlusconi has made and despite the continuous delegitimization and denigration of the magistrates, the truth has come out. From today, Italians can acknowledge that a first instance sentence considers Berlusconi a criminal”. For the Pd "sentences are not commented on".
Immediately after the pronouncement of the judges, in Piazza Affari the stock of Mediaset sank by more than two points.
