Silvio Berlusconi's Legal Woes Resume After Court Ruling - TIME

Description

The world has spent the past six months wondering how — and with whom — Silvio Berlusconi spends his Saturday nights. But the combative, scandal-plagued Prime Minister of Italy would prefer talking about his mornings instead. "Do you know how I've been forced to spend my Saturday mornings since I entered politics?" Berlusconi once declared to business leaders in Rome. "With my lawyers."

Italy's self-proclaimed defendant in chief makes a point of lamenting all those weekends spoiled by stacks of court dossiers as further proof that he is the victim of politically motivated magistrates, whom he called during the same speech "the spreading cancer of our democracy."

To combat such perceived persecution, Berlusconi has himself tested the bounds of decorous democratic conduct, including his allies' pushing a bill through Parliament last year that gave him and other top Italian officeholders immunity from prosecution. But after the Constitutional Court overturned that law in October, several criminal investigations into Berlusconi's business dealings have been reopened, with other new charges rumored to be looming.

The potentially most damaging trial is set to resume Friday in Milan, with the 73-year-old billionaire accused of paying British attorney David Mills $600,000 in 1997 to withhold incriminating evidence about his broadcasting empire Mediaset. Mills is appealing a conviction in the same case and both men have denied any wrongdoing.

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