Silvio Berlusconi and the 1-year prison sentence

Thu, 7 March, 2013 (Saints Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs). Silvio Berlusconi collects another jail sentence as the Unipol case ends, even though the former premier's lawyers stated that «the evidence against [SB] is insufficient.».

Not long ago Silvio Berlusconi could boast of never being sentenced to a single day of prison in spite of the number of trials – more than one hundred – where he has been indicted, for a reason or another (but mainly due to the aggressiveness of the left-wing magistrates, according to the former prime minister of Italy).

One of Silvio's trials

This statement isn't true any more, since in October 2012 he collected the first 4-year sentence at the Mediaset-trial (a decision that made him rethink his retirement from politics...), and in March 2013 he managed to gain another year in prison, due to the Unipol case (when an insurance company – Unipol – takeover bid by Rome's bank Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in 2005 led to the resignation of the governor of the Bank of Italy, Antonio Fazio).

Piero Fassino rejoices

The conviction is related to the publication of the script of the interception of a phone call (between Italian Democratic Party - PD - politician Piero Fassino and Giovanni Consorte, boss of Unipol insurance company), published by Milan newspaper Il Giornale, part of Berlusconi family media empire.

Silvio's brother Paolo Berlusconi, publisher of the newspaper, was convicted on the same charge and sentenced to two years and three months in prison. Piero Fassino, the left-wing politician – and now Turin's city mayor –, who allegedly asked from Consorte «So, do we own a bank?» was awarded the sum of €80,000 (equivalent to approximately £70,000 or $105,000) in damages.

What does The Knight think of all this? «An intolerable persecution» he burst out, from «a cancer of our democracy», as he labelled Italian judiciary earlier this month (you can see the video on our YouTube Channel).

In the meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi is also accused of having bribed a couple of member of the Senate of Italy, of having paid for having sex with an under-age prostitute, of having cheated the Italian voters by sending a misleading letter to millions of them... just to keep the Italian judiciary occupied.

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