Processo Mills - Berlusconi (The Guardian)

DAVID MILLS JAILED FOR ITALIAN CONNECTION

You can sense a little schadenfreude in the analysis of the downfall of David Mills in the press today, after he was sentenced to four and half years in an Italian prison over corruption charges aimed at Silvio Berlusconi .
The estranged husband of the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, said he would appeal against the sentence for taking £400,000 as a reward for withholding court testimony to help Italy's prime .
In a statement Mills said that he was very disappointed by the verdict: "I am innocent, but this is a highly political case."
"I am hopeful that the verdict and sentence will be set aside on appeal, and am told that I will have excellent grounds," he said.
The Independent, taking some delight, offers the best intro: "In a court hearing lasting less than one minute, David Mills, the tax lawyer, former Camden councillor amd estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail for taking 600,000 euros in exchange for withholding testimony that could have damaged the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi."
The Guardian's political correspondent Allegra Stratton looks at the ramifications the situation has had for Jowell.
"Remortgaging and hedge funds ... these mechanisms and devices are now the lingua franca of the economic downturn, but then the story was remarkable mostly for the size of the loan and the nature of the clients. Talk of £400,000 gifts and paperwork signed without questioning offended feminists and the frugal alike.
"'As the feminist you are, are we to believe that you signed for a mortgage loan on your house for your husband, without knowing exactly how it was going to be paid back?' Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray asked Jowell.
"Jowell had, it seemed to one anonymous Labour MP briefing at the time, "laid down her husband for her cabinet job". On hearing these reports of her intended split, Jowell said she was 'nearly sick'."
In another analysis piece, Peter Popham, in the Independent, questioned how it could have all gone so wrong.
"Brilliant and extroverted, master of four languages and the clarinet, the man sentenced to four and a half years in jail by a court in Milan yesterday is one of the best connected lawyers in Britain, with a network of influential friends and relations, most of them on or around the summit of new labour ... how did such a gifted, clever, well-connected man land in such a scrape?"
The Guardian: Fortunes of a spouse in the spotlight
The Independent: Convicted of bribery, Jowell's husband faces four years in jail
The Independent: The brilliant, well connected lawyer who was too impulsive for his own good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/18/7