David Mills, the British lawyer who formerly acted as Silvio Berlusconi’s offshore legal adviser, failed to have his conviction for accepting a bribe from the Premier overturned by a Milan court on Tuesday. In February Mills was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment for accepting 400,000 euros to lie in court in two cases involving Mr Berlusconi in the 1990s. Mills once admitted accepting the money but stated that it was not a bribe but a gift in recognition of his services. He later withdrew this statement.
Mr Berlusconi’s trial for bribery in 2008 was suspended when his government passed a law exempting an Italian Prime Minister from prosecution whilst in office. However, Italy’s highest court, the Cassazione, ruled this law unconstitutional in early October so the upheld conviction of Mr Mills could have serious and embarrassing consequences for Mr Berlusconi.
In Britain the Mills case became a cause célèbre largely because his wife, Tessa Jowell MP, was the British Culture Secretary when the news broke and the affair became known as “Jowellgate”. Finding themselves under intense media pressure, the couple decided to separate and this probably saved Jowell’s career. She was investigated by the Cabinet Secretary over a possible conflict of interests between her private life and her ministerial duties and was subsequently cleared by Tony Blair. Mills and Jowell remain estranged and the British media refer to the situation as the “divorce of convenience”. Jowell is currently Olympics Minister.
Mills now has one last chance to appeal by taking his case to Italy’s Supreme Court, the Cassazione. Even if the conviction is again upheld, Mills is unlikely to serve a prison term as under an amnesty introduced by the Prodi government in 2006 the sentence would be reduced to three years and the rest of the sentence would probably be suspended. He would, however, have to pay 250,000 euros in damages for bringing the Italian State into disrepute plus costs. Mills says that his faith in Italian justice is “ a little strained”.
