Berlusconi corruption trial adjourned for a month

Italian law sets a 10-year limit for prosecution of judiciary corruption crimes and terms for Berlusconi's trial are set to expire in 2011.

A court in Milan Saturday adjourned for a month the trial of Silvio Berlusconi accused of corrupting his former tax lawyer, as the Italian prime minister pursued efforts to get the judges off his back.

Berlusconi, who did not attend the hearing, is on trial for allegedly paying 600,000 dollars (440,000 euros) to British tax lawyer David Mills in exchange for false testimony during two trials in the mid-1990s.

Mills' parallel trial for the same crime was thrown out by Italy's appeals court on Thursday because the statute of limitations had expired, even though judges decided the crime had taken place.

Italian law sets a 10-year limit for prosecution of judiciary corruption crimes and terms for Berlusconi's trial are set to expire in the spring of 2011.

Berlusconi's lawyers on Saturday asked the court to suspend the trial until details on the Mills ruling were published, but judges refused because "the trial cannot be suspended for an undetermined amount of time."

The prime minister launched a fresh attack on the country's judges Friday, likening them to Afghanistan's Taliban and accusing them of using the judiciary for political purposes.

Citing ongoing reforms to the justice system which critics say are designed to make him harder to prosecute, Berlusconi remarked: "I don't think it will please the Taliban in the judiciary."

The secretary of Italy's magistrates' union Giuseppe Cascini replied, saying that "this escalations of insults and attacks against Italian magistrates is intolerable."

Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday called on the prime minister and the magistrates to tone down the "very serious accusations" which fuel "dangerous tensions" between branches of government.

Thousands of Italians congregated on Saturday in Piazza del Popolo in central Rome to protest against Berlusconi under a banner reading "Enough. The law is the same for everyone."

Berlusconi's battles with the law have marked his public life since he burst on to the political scene in the mid-1990s.

The media tycoon has faced charges including corruption, tax fraud, false accounting and illegally financing political parties.

Berlusconi was initially a co-defendant in the Mills trial, but proceedings against him were suspended after parliament approved a law shielding him from prosecution while in office, shortly after he returned to power in 2008.

However Italy's Constitutional Court struck down that legislation last year.

Meanwhile new laws are going through parliament which would have the effect of keeping Berlusconi out of the courts.

One would allow the prime minister or any member of his cabinet to be automatically granted the suspension of legal process for at least 18 months.

Passed by the lower house after a stormy debate, it is to be debated by the senate on March 9.

More legislation would quash any legal action if a final verdict is not handed down within six years of it being launched -- which would end a large number of ongoing cases, not just those against Berlusconi.

Since a separate trial against the prime minister restarted in December, he has not appeared in court in the two hearings so far, citing government commitments.

Berlusconi has never been definitively convicted: in some trials he was acquitted, while in other charges were dropped because the statute of limitations expired.

Commenting on the Mills case, Berlusconi Friday called it "an invention, pure and simple, absurd," and said he wanted "full absolution."