Berlusconi: court admits Senate of Italy as civil plaintiff in bribing trial

Wednesday, 26 February 2014. A court in Naples has granted the Senate of Italy's request to be a civil plaintiff in a new bribery trial with the involvement of Silvio Berlusconi.

A series of new investigations are leading a Neapolitanian court to set up a trial against Silvio Berlusconi, for bribing an Italian senator, though rumours spread that the senators might even be more than one.

Silvio Berlusconi screaming for vengeance against the "red judges"

The current case is about Mr Sergio De Gregorio, a member of the Senate of Italy who received €3m (£2.46m or $4.11m) for switching sides to centre-right, and by doing this helped bring down the centre-left government of Romano Prodi, and triggered an election that Berlusconi won, back in 2007.


A queue of potential plaintiffs quickly formed, as the news spread, and yesterday the tribunal admitted the Italian Senate, whilst ruled out a few of them, like Italy of Values' party (aka IdV, Italia dei Valori, the party of one of the “bribed” senators, Sergio De Gregorio), Codacons (an association which supports consumers and environment), and a bunch of citizens from the Marche region (I haven't a clue about what's their problem with Berlusconi...).

Definitely not good news for the former prime minister (actually the longest serving PM of Italy since World War II), who complains being the target of a massive political prosecution, and recently has revealed his new look.

Sergio De Gregorio received 3 million euro to join Berlusconi's centre-right, allegedly

It must be said that so far the prosecution had been pretty successful, as they managed to sentence Mr Berlusconi for tax fraud, and – consequentially – to expel him from the Senate (not to mention the incoming new trails of the bunga bunga sex scandal proceedings...). Fellow defendant of the media tycoon, one of his associate-friend-enemy, Mr Valter Lavitola, a wheeler-dealer who became known in Italy when the interception of phone conversation between him and Berlusconi hit the headlines, as the latter defined Italy a “shitty country” that “sickens him”.

Lavitola is also accused of blackmailing Berlusconi. Definitely a good companion in a trial.