Italy’s President says Berlusconi Conviction ‘Definitive’

{{President Giorgio Napolitano on Tuesday ruled out any reversal of a tax fraud conviction against Silvio Berlusconi and issued a stern warning to his party against trying to bring down the government over the issue.}}

Napolitano’s statement that the law must take its course dashed hopes in Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party that the head of state would find a way to allow the former prime minister to continue his leadership of the centre-right without restriction despite a jail sentence.

The party says that curtailing Berlusconi’s political activity would rob the 10 million people who voted for him in February’s election of their democratic choice. Several of its leading members had pressed Napolitano to find a way out.

“Any definitive sentence, and the consequent obligation of applying it, cannot but be taken into account,” Napolitano said in a statement, warning against any “fatal” crisis in Enrico Letta’s fragile left-right coalition government at a time when Italy is stuck in its worst postwar recession.

Earlier, Berlusconi’s oldest daughter Marina, 47, who heads his 6.6 billion euro business empire, flatly dismissed speculation that she could become the PDL figurehead to run the party while her father was out of circulation.

{wirestory}