{{Italy’s former PM Silvio Berlusconi has broadcast an angry video message after his prison sentence for tax fraud was upheld by the country’s highest court.}}
Berlusconi said he was the innocent victim of “an incredible series of accusations and trials that had nothing to do with reality”.
The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office.
Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age.
While he is expected to serve out his sentence as house arrest, he has the option of asking to do community service instead, with the deadline for the application not expected to fall until mid-October.
The ruling by Rome’s Court of Cassation, against which he cannot appeal, came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court.
In an emotional nine-minute video, Berlusconi denounced the decision as “based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights”.
“No-one can understand the onslaught of real violence that has been directed against me following an incredible series of accusations and trials that don’t have any foundation in reality,” he said.
He described the more that 50 court cases he has faced as “genuine judicial harassment that is unmatched in the civilised world”.
“In exchange for the commitments I have made over almost 20 years in favour of my country and coming almost at the end of my public life, I have been rewarded with accusations and a verdict that is founded on absolutely nothing, that takes away my personal freedom and my political rights.”
He criticised the country’s judicial record, saying: “Is this the Italy that we want? Is this the Italy that we love? Absolutely not.”
It is the billionaire businessman’s first definitive conviction after decades of criminal prosecutions.
The case concerns deals that his firm Mediaset made to purchase TV rights to US films.
BBC
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