Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi faced a fresh legal and political storm Wednesday after a ruling that his former corporate lawyer perjured himself to protect his business empire.
Berlusconi, who was removed from the trial under a new immunity law, described Tuesday's ruling as ''simply scandalous'' and suggested the judge, Nicoletta Gandus, was politically biased against him.
He said she was an expression of ''political hatred and jealousy''.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party claimed Gandus had issued her ruling - an explanation of why in February she handed British lawyer David Mills a four-and-a-half-year sentence for taking a $600,000 bribe - to throw a political ''time-bomb' aimed at denting the premier's popularity ahead of upcoming local and European Parliament elections.
PDL national coordinator Denis Verdini claimed ''sentences against Berlusconi are always already written''.
In reply, the Italian magistrates' association called the invective levelled at Gandus ''unacceptable'' while the judiciary's self-governing body said it was likely to take a stance in defence of magistrates and prosecutors.
The premier has repeatedly claimed he is the victim of a witch-hunt by an allegedly leftist judiciary.
Berlusconi unsuccessfully tried to have Gandus removed from the trial because of past statements on Internet sites against laws passed by his previous, 2001-2006, government.
Both Berlusconi and Mills on Wednesday reiterated that no money had changed hands and the lawyer, ex-husband of British Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, said he saw ''excellent prospects'' of having the verdict overturned on appeal.
Gandus found Mills guilty of telling lies in two corruption trials involving Berlusconi in the late 1990s.
Berlusconi's political rivals continued to criticise the premier Wednesday with Dario Franceschini of the biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party, claiming Italians were ''indignant'' at him allegedly dodging judgement.
A member of the small Communist Refoundation party, Vittorio Agnoletto, claimed Berlusconi recalled the late Central African Republic dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa ''because he is a symbol of power that corrupts, gives away diamonds and proclaims itself above the law''.
Former Milan graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro, who heads the second-biggest opposition party, said he would file a no-confidence motion in the premier when Berlusconi makes an announced statement to parliament on the affair.
Other opposition members reiterated calls for the premier to be impeached, unless he resigns.
But Berlusconi's lawyer Nicolo' Ghedini said the premier had pressing commitments which would prevent him from reporting to parliament any time soon.
''I don't know when the premier will be able to come to parliament,'' said Ghedini, who is also a PDL MP.
Sources inside the PDL said the premier might wait until after the EP elections to address parliament.
Another member of the PDL, Senator Piero Longo, said opposition claims that the new immunity law - which shields the premier, the president and the two parliamentary speakers from prosecution while in office - were ''rubbish''.
When he took office last year, Berlusconi said he would not avail himself of the law.
The premier, who has been in power for almost eight of the last 15 years, has been convicted in several corruption cases but the sentences have always been overturned on appeal or annulled by a new shortened statute of limitations.
