Former premier Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted on Wednesday of false accounting charges in connection with a corruption trial in which he has already been acquitted.
The court's decision to clear Berlusconi of false accounting was based on the fact that the charges against him were no longer considered a criminal offense.
The prosecution had asked the court to acquit the multi-billionaire because the statue of limitations for the charges had expired.
The acquittal was based on the fact that changes made to the legal code in 2002 by Berlusconi's government had downgraded the crimes he was alleged to have committed, basically from a felony to a misdemeanor.
The change also reduced the statute of limitations for the offenses.
The prosecution at the time asked the Constitutional Court to abrogate the changes, but the high court found no grounds to do so.
An appeal was later filed with the European Court of Justice, which replied that it did not have jurisdiction in such matters.
The trial for false accounting stemmed from one in which Berlusconi had been accused of bribing judges in order to derail the sale of state food conglomerate SME to his rival Carlo De Benedetti in the 1980s.
The media tycoon was acquitted of these charges in April of last year on the grounds that although a bribe to a Rome judge could be traced back to Berlusconi's financial company Fininvest, it had not been proved that he had authorised or had direct knowledge of the payment.
Berlusconi's lawyer and one-time defense minister Cesare Previti, however, was sentenced to six years in May 2006 for his role paying the bribe after a high-profile and controversial ten-year legal process involving two appeals.
