Judge rules Berlusconi attacker not fit for trial

THE man who hurled a statuette at Silvio Berlusconi, leaving the Italian premier with a broken nose and two broken teeth, is not fit to standtrial, a judge has ruled.

Judge Luisa Savoia placed Massimo Tartaglia under observation for a year in a psychiatric hospital where he has been held since February.

The ruling technically finds Tartaglia not guilty of the attack based on a psychiatric evaluation that found the defendant was not capable of knowingly or intentionally committing a crime at the time the attack took place, said defence lawyer Gian Marco Rubino.