Berlusconi tax-fraud conviction was not unfair says ECHR

(ANSA) - ROME, 22 OTT - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said Thursday that it has rejected an appeal regarding the fairness of a tax-fraud conviction against late ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi. In 2013 the Italian supreme court upheld a conviction against Berlusconi for complicity in tax evasion in his media empire for the years 2002 and 2003, making it definitive along with ancillary penalties that saw him stripped of his seat in the Senate and banned from holding public office until 2018. Berlusconi appealed to ECHR saying one of the judges involved in the decision was not impartial, citing a press interview he had given about the case and allegedly hostile remarks he made about the ex-premier reported by third parties. The heirs of Berlusconi, who saw the conviction reduced from four years to one and served it by doing community service, continued with the case after his death in 2023. But the ECHR said Thursday that it found that "Berlusconi had not shown that the bench of the Court of Cassation dealing with his case, and in particular the President of the Division to which the case had been allocated, had lacked impartiality. "The Court rejected Mr Berlusconi's other complaints as being either manifestly ill-founded or out of time," it added. (ANSA).
Read article...