Berlusconi slams judges as ‘cancer of democracy’

ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi slammed judges as “a cancer of democracy” during his first appearance at a trial for bribery, one of three court cases he is currently facing.

He was speaking during a break in the hearing in Milan where he is charged with paying his former British lawyer, David Mills, €400,000 to give false testimony about his business dealings.

He laid into prosecutors, accusing them of persecuting him for political reasons. Such magistrates “are the cancer of our democracy, responsible for repeated attempts at subversion”, he said, while praising judges who rejected prosecutors’ accusations as “heroes”.