(ANSA) - Milan prosecutors are investigating Premier Silvio Berlusconi on possible charges of suborning a witness and abetting in perjury in connection with probes into his family holding company Fininvest, Italy's leading daily reported on Thursday.
According to Corriere della Sera, the premier allegedly paid top British corporate lawyer David Mills, who acted for Fininvest for over 20 years, "not less than" 600,000 dollars to "lie, deny the truth or withhold, in full or in part, information to which he was privy."
The front-page report said that in 1997, Berlusconi asked late Fininvest manager Carlo Bernasconi to deposit the sum in Mills' Swiss bank account. The daily claims that at the end of November Berlusconi was officially served a formal notice that he was under investigation on these charges and was told to appear for questioning - along with Mills - at the Milan courthouse.
Neither Berlusconi nor Mills showed up for the apppointment, Corriere said.
According to the daily, the probe against Mills is connected to his testimony during two proceedings against Berlusconi: on November 20, 1997 in a Fininvest kickbacks trial and on December 12, 1998 in the so-called All-Iberian trial for kickbacks to late Socialist premier Bettino Craxi. The daily did not have any comments from Mills on its front-page report. The premier's lawyer Niccolo' Ghedini stressed that the British lawyer has acted as a prosecution witness against Berlusconi in another trial in Milan.
Ghedini said the prosecutor had questioned Bernasconi several times before his death in 2001 and that he had never corroborated their case. Furthermore, in 1997 Mills and Fininvest were at odds because the lawyer was holding ten billion lire of the company's funds.
Ghedini said it is unrealistic to claim that Mills was given 600,000 dollars when Fininvest was attempting to "obtain the refund of ten billion lire." Ghedini noted that "in the end, Mills kept four billion lire."
BERLUSCONI AND MILLS FACE ANOTHER PROCEEDING.
Berlusconi and Mills are involved in another proceeding in Milan.
Last month, a Milan judge rejected a request by lawyers defending the premier, Mills and 12 other people that proceedings against them should be transferred to Brescia. The court examined a request by prosecutors that the 14 be indicted on charges ranging from tax fraud, false accounting and embezzlement to money laundering in a probe centring on Fininvest and the premier's private TV network company Mediaset.
The case concerns Mediaset's purchase of TV rights for US films before 1999 through two offshore firms.
Prosecutors believe the purchase costs were artificially inflated, allowing Mediaset to avoid tax amounting to almost 125 billion old lire. The accused include Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri, top former officials at Berlusconi's Fininvest family holding company, veteran Egyptian film producer and former director Frank (also known as Farouk) Agrama as well as Mills.
Mills allegedly set up the two off-shore companies for Berlusconi in the early 1990s. He is accused of money laundering and tax evasion and faces a sentence of up to 12 years if convicted. All of the accused deny wrongdoing. If the court decides to indict the premier, the trial could be under way next year when the billionaire media magnate stands for re-election. Berlusconi's two eldest children, Piersilvio and Marina, are also under investigation for suspected money laundering.
Marina Berlusconi is now Fininvest chairwoman as well as chairwoman of the group's publishing giant Mondadori. Her younger brother Piersilvio is Mediaset deputy chairman. Mills has told Italian prosecutors that he helped set up two offshore companies, Accent and Timor, to hold money for Piersilvio and Marina Berlusconi.
Prosecutors believe as much as 280 million euros was funnelled out of Fininvest to the premier's two children using the two companies. Milan magistrates recently discovered 11 foreign bank accounts - 10 in Switzerland and one in Liechtenstein - which
they suspect were used illegally by Mediaset.
Mediaset has denied connection with the accounts, either "directly or indirectly".
Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, has repeatedly accused Milan prosecutors of hounding him for political reasons. His press spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, repeated these accusations today, saying the new probe was "timed" to coincide with the campaign for the April general elections.
The premier has been at the centre of various corruption investigations into his vast business empire. He denies all wrong-doing and has never received a guilty verdict. In some cases he has been cleared because of the statute of limitations or changes to the law introduced by his government.
