Legal investigations about Berlusconi

[edit] Delaying tactics

Silvio Berlusconi has an extensive record of indictments, as various criminal charges have been made against him and his companies over the years (see also the following subsection on Berlusconi`s trials), including mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, corruption and bribery of police officers and judges. Some of Berlusconi`s close collaborators, friends and firm managers have been found guilty of related crimes, notably his brother, Paolo, who in 2002 agreed to pay 52,000,000 euros as a plea bargain for various charges including corruption. Silvio Berlusconi has never been convicted in any trial. The Italian legal system allows the statute of limitations to continue to run during the course of the criminal trial. Consequently, the delaying tactics adopted by Berlusconi`s attorneys (including repeated motions for change of venue) served to nullify a pending charge in one case.

[edit] Membership of "Propaganda Due" (P2) masonic lodge

In 1981, a scandal arose after the police discovery of Licio Gelli`s secret freemasonry lodge Propaganda Due (P2), which aimed to move the Italian political system in a more authoritarian regime to oppose communism. The list of people involved in P2 included members of the secret services and some prominent characters from political arena, business, military and media. Silvio Berlusconi, who was then just starting to gain popularity as the founder and owner of "Canale 5" TV network, was listed as a member of P2.[24] The P2 lodge was dissolved by the Italian parliament in December 1981 and a law was passed declaring similar organizations illegal, but no specific crimes were alleged to individual members of P2.[citation needed].

Berlusconi later (1989) sued three journalists for libel for writing articles hinting at his involvement in financial crimes[citation needed]. In the court, he declared that he had joined the P2 lodge "only for a very short time before the scandal broke" and "he had not even paid the entry fee".[citation needed] Such statements, however, conflicted with the findings of the parliamentary commission appointed to investigate the lodge`s activity, with material evidence, and even with previous testimony of Berlusconi, all of which showing that he had actually been a member of P2 since 1978 and had indeed paid a 100,000 Italian liras entry fee[citation needed]. Because of this a court of appeal condemned him for perjury in 1990, but crime was extinguished by the previous 1989 amnesty so he was never actually jailed[citation needed].

Actually, the main fact related to Berlusconi’s P2 membership has been not pointed out by the just mentioned trial, since Berlusconi was not a normal P2 member. According to an interview released to an Italian newspaper by the P2 head, Licio Gelli[citation needed], Berlusconi has during his last government completely realized the P2 plan, becoming somehow the P2 plan maker.

In particular, it is worth reminding that among the P2 program points there were: the control of the media and Italian justice and the impairment of the Italian education system. The first point is somehow known even outside of Italy, since Berlusconi, during his government, had full control on 5 out of 6 major national channels. Berlusconi used his televisions in a way similar to the Roman emperors: he basically gave Italians “panem et circenses”, satisfying the Italian pop