Premier demands trial be suspended

ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday called for his corruption trial to be suspended and for the reintroduction of judicial immunity for parliamentarians.

After a momentous court appearance earlier this week, where Berlusconi denied he bribed judges during a 1980s business deal, the prime minister said lawmakers had to be protected from politically motivated magistrates.

"I am acting not for any presumed personal interests but for those of the nation," he wrote in a letter to Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Berlusconi was stunned last week when his friend and close political ally Cesare Previti was found guilty in a similar case and sentenced to 11 years in jail.

A guilty verdict against Berlusconi, which might fall in the second half of the year when Italy holds the rotating European Union presidency, would push the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

European Commission President Romano Prodi was a key player in the contested 1980s takeover saga and Berlusconi accused him this week of acting against Italy's interests in the case.

Prodi denied the charge and the row risks poisoning the upcoming presidency.

The past week's legal tumult has convulsed Italian politics and appeals for calm have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

"Italy is in danger. We risk becoming a regime without even realising it," centre-left leader Francesco Rutelli said in an interview published in La Repubblica newspaper yesterday.

Many opposition politicians have rejected calls for the restoration of parliamentary immunity which was removed during widespread corruption scandals in the early 1990s.

Berlusconi yesterday said he had faced an unprecedented legal assault over the past decade with magistrates paying 470 visits to his company offices and launching 87 lawsuits against him and his interests.

"My group has been put on the stake," he said.