A close aide of Premier Silvio Berlusconi went to jail on Friday after Italy's highest court upheld a conviction for bribing judges. Cesare Previti, 71, a former Berlusconi attorney and
defence minister, was given a six-year term by the Cassation Court on Thursday night.
He entered Rome's Rebibbia prison Friday afternoon, where officials said he would be placed among the general prison poulation.
But it is unclear how much of his term Previti will spend in jail.
The ex-minister filed a plea on Friday to be released from incarceration under a law recently passed by the Berlusconi government allowing alternatives such as house arrest for people over 70. It is uncertain how long it will take a detention court
to take a decision.
In another ruling on Thursday night, the Cassation Court ordered a retrial in a second judge-bribery case, this time involving Berlusconi's media empire. The outgoing premier has een acquitted in that case because of the statute of limitations and cannot be retried.
In Thursday night's first verdict, involving a huge bribe from oil company SIR to gain a massive settlement from public financial holding company IMI, the Cassation Court gave Previti a definitive six-year sentence, one year less than in Previti's first appeal.
Previti issued a statement Friday saying he was "unbowed" and "serene in the knowledge that they are sending an innocent man to jail". He said had been "shot in the back of the neck by a firing squad". He said he had already resigned from parliament, to which he was re-elected last month, because "I will not allow those gentlemen to throw me out".
Definitively convicted felons cannot serve in parliament.
The Cassation Court confirmed a six-year sentence against judge Vittorio Metta who was found to have received a massive bribe from the heirs of oilman Nino Rovelli. The heirs' convictions were quashed. It upheld convictions against two lawyers found to have acted as go-betweens but quashed a five-year conviction against another alleged ring-leader, judge Renato quillante.
Squillante was cleared because he acted "as a sort of private intermediary" and did not use his judicial powers, the court said.
One of the lawyers' attorneys said: "I'm happy for Squillante but I don't understand why the other convictions, for receiving the same money, were upheld". However, Squillante has been convicted along with Previti in a third judge-bribery case involving a takeover battle for a foods group with Berlusconi's long-time rival Carlo De Benedetti, the former Olivetti boss.
Previti got five years and Squillante seven in a December appeals verdict which they are appealing. Berlusconi was cleared, and saved from a prosecution appeal under a new law passed by his government curtailing prosecutors' rights to appeal against convictions.
The second judge-bribing trial, which the Cassation has now reopened, involves the same defendants and the outgoing premier's Fininvest holding company. The prosecution claims Fininvest paid Previti to fix a ruling awarding Berlusconi Italy's biggest publishing house Mondadori, ending a battle with archrival De Benedetti. The appeals court acquitted Previti and the other
defendants. Berlusconi was no longer a defendant in that retrial because the statute of limitations kicked in.
On Thursday night, in a decision that took observers by surprise, the Cassation Court ordered a second retrial. Previti and Berlusconi - who has been tried in several other cases but never received a definitive sentence, sometimes because of law changes - insist they are the victims of a politically motivated judicial witch-hunt.
One of Previti's lawyers claimed Thursday's Cassation sentence was "proof that a leftwing regime is being installed" after the centre left's recent electoral victory over Berlusconi.
A leading member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party claimed Previti had been found guilty "only of being a member of Forza Italia". The centre left, which has opened talks with Berlusconi over forging a possible consensus to elect Italy's new president next week, did not comment on the case.
