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| Judges to destroy me: Berlusconi |
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
ROME: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave a foretaste of how he may defend himself when he goes back on trial for corruption next month, attacking the judicial system as overrun by “communists” out to destroy him.
“The real Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi but communist prosecutors and communist judges in Milan who have attacked him again and again since he entered politics and decided to attack the power of the communists,” an angry Berlusconi said on television on Tuesday night.
The comment in a telephone call to the show from his home, was his first public reaction to a ruling by a Milan court hours earlier which upheld a conviction against British lawyer David Mills for accepting a bribe from Berlusconi in 1997.
Mills is appealing that verdict, which one of Berlusconi’s lawyers called “diabolical”, in Italy’s highest court. Berlusconi will be tried separately for his role in that case. “Is Silvio Berlusconi really the most criminal businessman in the history of the world,” said Berlusconi, who has long accused Italy’s magistrature of being politically biased.
Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-graft magistrate and now an opposition parliamentarian, called on Berlusconi to resign over the Mills verdict and said a national demonstration to demand he step down will be held on Dec 5.
Magistrate Alfredo Robledo rejected Berlusconi’s use of the term “red robes” to describe judges he says are communists.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
