Berlusconi corruption trial to continue

Judges say prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s trial on corruption charges will continue, despite a ruling by Italy’s highest appellate court that overturned the conviction of the British lawyer the Italian leader allegedly bribed.

Three judges today rebuffed a bid by Berlusconi’s defence lawyers to suspend his trial until the high court makes public its reasons in concluding the statute of limitations had run out in the case of David Mills.

Mills, estranged husband of Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, had been found guilty by an Italian court of accepting a £450,000 (€447,925) bribe to lie in court to protect Berlusconi’s business interests and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Berlusconi’s trial in the same case restarted in December after being frozen by a now-defunct immunity law. The prime minister denies wrongdoing.