Berlusconi promet de "combattre la dictature des magistrats"

Le Monde.fr avec AFP | 27.10.2012

L'ex-chef du gouvernement italien, Silvio Berlusconi, a affirmé, samedi 27 octobre, qu'il se sentait "obligé" de rester en politique "pour réformer la planète justice", après sa condamnation à une peine de prison pour fraude fiscale. Certains"citoyens n'ont pas compris ce qui m'est arrivé", a-t-il déclaré sur l'une de ses chaînes de télévision, TG5. Plus tard dans la journée, il a également estimé que sa condamnation était "pire" que celle des scientifiques accusés d'avoir sous-estimé les risques avant le tremblement de terre de L'Aquila en 2009.

La condamnation des scientifiques est une véritable "folie", a déclaré le Cavaliere lors d'une conférence de presse, qu'il a donnée en fin de journée aux côtés de son principal avocat, Me Niccolo Gheddini, dans la superbe Villa Renaissance qui appartient à son groupe au nord de Milan. Mais, a-t-il ajouté, "ma condamnation est encore pire". "Eux, au moins, se sont assis autour d'une table" pour évoquer les risques de séisme, "tandis que moi j'étais président du Conseil, je n'avais aucunpouvoir de gestion sur mon groupe", a-t-il expliqué.

"COMBATTRE LA DICTATURE DES MAGISTRATS"

Visiblement tendu, le magnat des medias a indiqué, les machoires serrées, qu'il allait désormais consacrer toute son activité politique "à combattre la dictature des magistrats", "la république judiciaire". A cette fin, il restera le président du parti qu'il a fondé, le Peuple de la Liberté (PDL), mais il a confirmé qu'il ne se présenterait pas au poste de chef du gouvernement et que son parti organiserait des primaires.

Interrogé sur la légitimité d'une personne condamnée pour mener une telle croisade, il a rétorqué : "c'est non seulement juste, c'est un devoir pour qui jouit de la grande estime de millions d'Italiens", afin que "ce qui m'arrive n'arrive pas aux citoyens italiens". M. Berlusconi a par ailleurs livré une dure charge contre le gouvernement Monti – que son parti soutient au Parlement –, l'accusant de menerune politique dictée par la chancelière allemande, Angela Merkel. Mais interrogé sur un éventuel vote de défiance à l'égard du gouvernement Monti, il s'est montré prudent : "nous devons mettre sur la balance d'un côté la politique du gouvernement qui porte à une spirale récessive de l'économie" et de l'autre le fait qu'"un vote de défiance pourrait être pris d'une certaine façon par le monde de la finance" et hâterait la date des élections, prévues au printemps 2013.

Vendredi, le Cavaliere, 76 ans, a été condamné à une peine de quatre ans de prison pour fraude fiscale dans l'affaire Mediaset, peine réduite de facto à un an grâce à une amnistie. Il lui est aussi interdit d'exercer toute fonction publique pendant cinq ans. Ces peines ne sont toutefois pas exécutoires tant qu'un jugement définitif – après appel et arrêt de la Cour de Cassation – n'aura pas été prononcé. Or d'ici-là, les faits ont largement le temps d'être prescrits. Ses avocats ont déjà annoncé qu'ils déposeraient un recours en appel d'ici au 9 ou 10 novembre.
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2012/10/27/berlusconi-se-sent-oblige-de-rester-en-politique-apres-sa-condamnation_1782147_3214.html

A lire : Condamné à un an de prison, Berlusconi dénonce un acharnement judiciaire

LA MOLOTOV DI SILVIO CONTRO MONTI Col suo discorso alla Fidel Castro, Silvio torna caudillo

Lucia Annunziata

Direttore, L'Huffington Post

Fa venire in mente Fidel. Non il suo amico Confalonieri, ma il leader
caraibico, Castro.
C'e intanto un sapore sovietico in quella scenografia. Il tessuto rosso a
rami gialli alle spalle del Cavaliere durante la conferenza stampa , e'
identico al sipario ( restaurato pochi anni fa) di velluto rosso con
falce e martello ricamate in oro del Teatro Bolschoi. Da Fidel Silvio
sembra condividere ora l' inclinazione ai discorsi fiume, e lo spirito di
resistenza a qualunque prospettiva di abbandonare il potere.
Ma il vero castrismo di Berlusconi e' nei toni e nei contenuti.
L'intervento di Villa Gernetto e' a tutti gli effetti quello di un leader
non piu' Europeo, ma di un caudillo latinoamericano, con una forte
tensione antioccidentale. Lo dicono frasi del tipo: "Si deve porre fine a
questa situazione, e lo si fa cambiando totalmente la politica imposta
all'Italia dalla Merkel". O sottolineature di distanze personali, contro
"Merkel e Sarkozy che con i loro "sorrisetti" hanno assassinato la mia
credibilità internazionale".
Il Cavaliere che abbiamo visto in conferenza stampa si e' ripresentato con
gli abiti del rivoluzionario populista di un tempo: "Intendo dedicare la
massima parte del mio tempo al mio paese e continuare nell'opera di
modernizzazione e cambiamento con cui mi sono presentato agli italiani nel
1994". Per annunciare l'obiettivo principale della sua rivolta di oggi:
Mario Monti.
In effetti , il ritorno di Silvio dopo tre ( ma significativi) giorni
contiene un cambiamento che avra' un impatto su tutto lo scenario
italiano. Il capo del Pdl che tre giorni fa aveva annunciato di non
ripresentarsi come premier, era un leader che cercava di passare alla
storia per il suo senso delle Istituzioni, un padre della patria in
pectore il cui sacrificio era servito a costruire un altro pezzo di
Europa. Il Berlusconi che torna e' un uomo che lavorera' contro l'attuale
europa e l'attuale Premier .

Le conseguenze di questo ulteriore giro di scenario potremo misurarle fin
dalle prossime ore ( che sara' delle primarie, che faranno I moderati,
potra' il Pd lasciare a Berlusconi l'antimontismo? ). Ma da subito
possiamo svelarvi che nella giornata del No Monti Day, e' stata la Molotov
di Silvio quella che ha davvero raggiunto Palazzo Chigi.

http://www.huffingtonpost.it/lucia-annunziata/col-suo-discorso-alla-fid_b_2030918.html?utm_hp_ref=italy

Silvio Berlusconi in conferenza stampa: "Dedicherò il mio tempo a cambiare l'Italia". E attacca Monti: "Con lui recessione senza fine"

Pubblicato: 27/10/2012

Prima la decisione di non ricandidarsi, poi la condanna a 4 anni per il processo Mediaset, ora la frase "in campo per riformare la giustizia" che significa una nuova, ennesima, discesa politica dell'ex premier Silvio Berlusconi. Tanto da dar vita, su twitter, all'hashtag #ancoratu.

In Villa è stato accolto da un applauso. Nelle prime file siedono, fra gli altri, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, Daniela Santanchè, Paolo Romani, Tiziana Maiolo e Roberto Lassini (che è stato indagato per i manifesti con scritto 'Via le Br dalle Procure'), il coordinatore lombardo del Pdl Mario Mantovani e Nicolò Ghedini. Ecco le sue parole (diretta video):

CONFERMO CHE NON MI CANDIDO "Confermo, non mi presento alla presidenza del consiglio in modo da facilitare l'assemblazione di tutti i moderati". "Si terranno nel nostro partito le primarie, sarà un confronto di personalità e idee molto positivo da cui arriveranno protagonisti degni di rappresentare i moderati al governo".

VOGLIO DEDICARE MASSIMA ATTENZIONE AL PAESE"Intendo dedicare la massima parte del mio tempo al mio Paese e continuare l'opera di modernizzazione che ho iniziato nel '94''

SENTENZA INCREDIBILE "Ieri il tribunale di Milano ha presentato una sentenza che ho già definito non solo inaspettata ma incredibile e intollerabile nella quale vengo presentato come un individuo, nonostante la mia storia, dotato di naturale capacità a delinquere. Non credo di poter accettare una cosa del genere, credo si sia passato il limite".

GERMANIA Berlusconi parla dei rapporti con Germania e Francia. "La Germania ha forzato il Consiglio dei capi governo ad alcune decisioni che io non ho mai condiviso". "Ho deciso di dire qui le cose che non ho mai palesato, ma che fanno parte della realtà. A partire dal comportamento egemonico della Germania all'interno dell'Unione europea", che " dovrebbe essere "solidale e non egoistica, come invece viene intesa dalla sua dirigenza". "I sorrisi di Sarkozy e della Merkel" sono stati "il tentativo di assassinio della mia credibilità internazionali"

IL PIL E LA RECESSIONE "Il nostro pil emerso deve essere sommato al pil sommerso, è una caratteristica della nostra economia, è prodotto. Così noi si andava a oltre 2 mila miliardi di pil e si scendeva sotto il 100% del debito. L'Italia si pone al secondo posto per solidità economica dopo la Germania". Per questo motivo imporre allIitalia misure rigide volute dal fiscal compact "significa portare l'economia alla recessione".

MONTI DOVEVA CAMBIARE LA COSTITUZIONE "Il governo dei tecnici ebbe per nostro preciso invito il compito di cambiare la costituzione. Ma nessuno di questi cambiamenti è stato presentato"

TECNICI HANNO ADOTTATO EGEMONIA GERMANIA E CI PORTANO A SPIRALE RECESSIONE "Il nostro governo dei tecnici ha adottato al 100 per 100 le indicazioni della Germania egemone, anche sul piano dell'economia. Il governo dei tecnici ha introdotto misure che portano l'economia in una spirale recessiva"

STATO DI POLIZIA TRIBUTARIA "Le misure messe in atto dal governo Monti sono quasi una "estorsione fiscale tipico di uno Stato di polizia tributaria"

ABROGARE IMU Abrogazione dell'Imu e impegno" a non mettere mai alcuna tassa sulla casa, che costituisce "il pilastro sicuro per ogni famiglia"

DITTATURA DEI MAGISTRATI: "E' UNA MAGISTRATO CRAZIA" "Basta con sentenze incredibili, questa è una magistratocrazia"

SENTENZA IERI PIU' FOLLE DI QUELLA DEL TERREMOTO "La sentenza che mi riguarda è ancora più folle di quella relativa ai magistrati"

"DECIDEREMO SE TOGLIERE FIDUCIA A GOVERNO MONTI" Silvio Berlusconi ha annunciato in conferenza stampa "che nei prossimi giorni, assieme ai miei collaboratori, decideremo se continuare o togliere la fiducia al governo"

"IO RESTO IN CAMPO" "Io non discendo in campo ma resto in campo perché non mi sono mai ritirato. Mi sono ritirato dalla candidatura alla presidenza del Consiglio. Continuerò a essere presidente del mio movimento - ha aggiunto - e lavorerò per assumere le decisioni con gli altri esponenti".

PRIMARIE PDL APERTE A TUTTI TRANNE CHE A ME "Le primarie del Pdl sono aperte a tutti tranne che al fondatore del Pdl"

PROCESSO RUBY SI BASA SU STUPIDAGGINI Il processo Ruby è un "procedimento scandaloso che si basa su delle stupidaggini"

TORNA IN TV "PRONTO AD ANDARE DA VESPA" "Riprenderò le mie presenze e interviste, la prego di volere comunicare al signor Vespa che sono disponibile ad accettare un invito".

MONTI? NON C'E' PIU' SPAZIO PER GOVERNO TECNICO "Mario Monti, se crederà di partecipare alle elezioni e di farsi eleggere a candidato premier, potrà svolgere il ruolo di presidente del Consiglio. Non credo che dopo questa sospensione di democrazia del governo tecnico ci sia ancora il posto e lo spazio per una indicazione per chiamata e non per elezione"

CON CASINI E MONTEZEMOLO UNIAMOCI PER BATTERE SINISTRA"Casini e Montezemolo sono da
considerarsi parte del centrodestra e solo le persone che non hanno buon senso non capiscono che un rassemblament dei moderati può battere la sinistra".

Berlusconi Is Found Guilty of Tax Fraud

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: October 26, 2012

 Tony Gentile/Reuters

ROME — A court in Milan convicted former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud on Friday and sentenced him to four years in prison. Mr. Berlusconi is also currently on trial over charges that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute. He has denied the accusation.

The ruling was Mr. Berlusconi’s fourth lower-court conviction, and the first since he stepped down as prime minister in November, after years in which his personal legal battles often eclipsed the work of his government. His four-year sentence was reduced to one year under a law aimed at reducing prison overcrowding.

Besides being a blow to Mr. Berlusconi personally, the ruling comes at a time when his center-right party is unraveling and Italy is in the throes of the most dramatic political transition since the early 1990s, when he first came to power. It was just two days ago that he announced that he would not lead his party in Italy’s next elections.

“It’s without a doubt a political sentence, the way so many other trials invented against me have been political,” Mr. Berlusconi said after Friday’s ruling, calling in to a news program on a channel he owns.

A lawyer for Mr. Berlusconi said the former prime minister would appeal the ruling, which must go through two more rounds of appeal before becoming definitive. It is unlikely that he will ever serve jail time. Even if a definitive ruling were reached before the statute of limitations in the case runs out next year, Mr. Berlusconi would enjoy immunity as long as he remained in the Parliament.

However, the judges also barred the former prime minister from holding public office for five years, a penalty that would be applied only if his conviction were upheld by the highest court. They also took the unusual step of reading the reasoning behind the verdict, which normally takes 60 to 90 days after a ruling. That could speed up the appeals.

On Wednesday, Mr. Berlusconi, 76, said he would not lead his People of Liberty party in Italy’s national elections next spring to replace the unelected technocratic government of Prime Minister Mario Monti, who has been guiding Italy through a perilous economic crisis. But he said that he would stay involved in politics.

The case at the heart of Friday’s ruling centered on a scheme in which Mr. Berlusconi and several other defendants used a series of offshore companies to buy the rights to broadcast American movies on Mr. Berlusconi’s private television networks and falsely declared the amount of the payments to avoid taxes. Prosecutors said the defendants then inflated the price for the television rights of some 3,000 films as they relicensed them internally to Mr. Berlusconi’s networks, pocketing the difference, which amounted to around 250 million euros, about $320 million. Mr. Berlusconi, who has major holdings in real estate, insurance, advertising and publishing, has been involved in dozens of legal cases over the years. In 1997 and 1998, when Mr. Berlusconi was the opposition leader, he was convicted by lower courts on charges of tax fraud and corruption.

All three previous lower-court convictions were either overturned on appeal or thrown out for lack of evidence — or the statute of limitations ran out before a definitive highest court ruling was reached.

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/europe/berlusconi-convicted-and-sentenced-in-tax-fraud.html?_r=1

Italian politics

Four more years

ON OCTOBER 26th, Italy’s former prime minister was found guilty of tax fraud. There was nothing new in this. He has been convicted three times before. But the Italian legal system is lenient (and it was made even more lenient by Mr Berlusconi’s government). Each time, his convictions—if not overturned on appeal—were ‘timed out’ by a statute of limitations.

On this occasion, Mr Berlusconi was given four years in jail. But (speaking of leniency) three were immediately knocked off by a retrospective 2006 amnesty. And there is scant chance the 76 year-old billionaire politician will serve what is left of his sentence.

Under Italian law, he has the right to two appeals before his conviction can be enforced. The appeals could take years to hear and it is a safe bet that before they have been completed, probably at the end of 2013 or the start of 2014, the whole process will be rendered futile by the time limits.

Yet, despite all this, and the fact that Mr Berlusconi had confirmed only two days earlier that he did not intend standing for prime minister in the next general election, his conviction made the front pages of news web sites as far away as Buenos Aires. Notwithstanding terrible violence in Afghanistan and Syria on Friday, both the BBC and Die Welt chose to give the top slot to Mr Berlusconi’s legal setback.

There is more to this than journalistic nostalgia for a leader who was nothing if not newsworthy. It reflects an increasingly sharp difference between internal and external perceptions of what is happening in Italy.

For months now, Italians have been consigning Mr Berlusconi and his works, if not to history, then to irrelevance. At first, he seemed not to realise what was happening. In June, appalled by the decline in support for his party, the People of Freedom (PdL), he drew the conclusion that it was because it no longer had the benefit of his undoubted charisma (last year, after losing his majority in parliament and stepping down as prime minister, Mr Berlusconi gave up the leadership of the PdL). He implied—indeed, all but announced—that he was coming back to take over the reins.

But his party’s ratings in the opinion polls continued stubbornly to fall. And in recent weeks it has looked as if a decline could be turning into a plunge: in several recent surveys, the PdL has garnered less support than the Five Star Movement of the comedian and blogger, Beppe Grillo.

The old Berlusconi magic is just not working. And his announcement on October 24th that he was standing aside marked a reluctant acceptance of something that has long since been clear to most of his fellow-Italians: that his long ascendancy over the public life of his country is at an end.

It does not, however, mean his courtroom woes are also at an end. Or that they will fail to increase the problems facing the PdL. Mr Berlusconi is a defendant in three other trials. By far the most discomforting is one in Milan in which he is accused of paying for sex with an underage girl and then covering up the alleged offence by taking improper advantage of his position as prime minister. For the ever-smiling tycoon, as for his party, the worst may yet be to come.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2012/10/italian-politics

The last thing Italy needs - Silvio Berlusconi will probably run for prime minister for a seventh time

Jul 21st 2012 | ROME

from the print edition | Europe

FEW things could be worse for Italy’s credibility (and creditworthiness) than for investors to spend the next nine months wondering if Silvio Berlusconi will return as prime minister. But that is increasingly likely.

Since late June, he has been teasing the public and media with increasingly blatant hints that he intends to be his party’s candidate at the next general election, to be held by the spring of 2013. He has still not said so publicly. But in an interview on July 14th he appeared to treat it as fact, saying he “would have preferred to have made the announcement later”.

The day before, his doctor said the 75 year-old billionaire was fit for the fray, though adding that Mr Berlusconi had gone on a diet to shed eight kilos. It then emerged the former prime minister was to hold a behind-closed-doors meeting with an international group of liberal economists. His plan, said aides, was to relaunch his party, the Freedom People (PdL), on the basis of the free-market principles he espoused when he first entered office in 1994, but which he signally failed to apply in the nine subsequent years when he governed Italy.

In another sign that Mr Berlusconi is aiming for a new start, the PdL’s general secretary, Angelino Alfano, said he thought Nicole Minetti, an embarrassing reminder of the former prime minister’s recent past, should resign as a regional councillor in Lombardy. Ms Minetti, a former showgirl, is on trial for allegedly supplying prostitutes for so-called bunga-bunga parties at Mr Berlusconi’s mansion near Milan. Her co-defendants have already conveniently disappeared from public life. One, a television newscaster, was sacked from Mr Berlusconi’s network. The other, a show-business agent, is in jail charged with bankruptcy offences.

If nothing else, recent events have shown that the media tycoon still has a sublime ability to draw attention to himself. By the time Ms Minetti, who had fled to Paris, reappeared in a blaze of photographers’ flashes, a nation that had spent months fretting over sovereign bond yields was once again discussing Mr Berlusconi, his intentions and his shapely lady friends.

But does this mean that, as in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, he can return from political near-death? In the eight months since he left office, naming Mr Alfano as the PdL’s prime-ministerial candidate, his party’s popularity has plunged. Its latest poll ratings were little better than those of the maverick Five Star Movement led by Beppe Grillo, a blogger and comedian.

There are three possible reasons. One is that the PdL is paying the price for its parliamentary support for Mario Monti’s technocratic government and the government’s EU-mandated austerity measures, which have hit many people very hard. But the centre-left Democratic Party has also backed Mr Monti and not suffered to anything like the same extent.

A second theory is that the PdL is lost without its founder. But it can be equally well argued that it is languishing because Mr Berlusconi has never really taken a back seat and allowed Mr Alfano to enhance his standing with the electorate.

A third possible reason for the PdL’s plight, which Mr Berlusconi is doubtless loth to consider, is that a growing number of Italians realise that the eight years between 2001 and 2011 when he was in power were a disaster for their country’s economy. He introduced few structural reforms and, largely as a result, Italy’s economic growth was negligible.

In a poll released on July 9th by Termometro Politico, a website, 72% of those questioned said they would never vote for Mr Berlusconi again. The poll also suggested that the allegations regarding his private life had ravaged a core element of his traditional constituency. It found that 53% of the women who voted for him in the latest general election, in 2008, said they would not do so again.

Mr Berlusconi, then, is setting off on the comeback trail from a lower and more unpromising point than ever before. But his resources are virtually boundless, his communication is outstanding—and he has a strong card to play if he chooses. Italians are inevitably writhing under Mr Monti’s tax increases and spending cuts. A promise to reverse the present government’s policies could also reverse the PdL’s fortunes in the polls. However alarming the spectre of his return, Mr Berlusconi’s chances should not be written off just yet.

http://www.economist.com/node/21559371

Processo Ruby, Berlusconi in aula "Mantengo ragazze rovinate da pm"

L'ex premier a Palazzo di Giustizia per l'udienza. Deve rispondere di concussione e prostituzione minorile. Sui travestimenti: "Erano gare di burlesque". "Le donne sono esibizioniste". "I costumi regalati da Gheddafi". La testimonianza di diversi funzionari della polizia. L'agente Iafrate rivela che la giovane marocchina le disse che non era nipote Mubarak

MILANO -  "Mantengo queste ragazze, perché hanno avuto la vita rovinata da questo processo", ha detto Silvio Berlusconi in un intervallo del processo sul caso Ruby ¹, in corso a Milano, in cui è imputato per concussione e prostituzione minorile. A sorpresa questa mattina l'ex premier è arrivato a Palazzo di Giustizia per assistere all'udienza. 

Parlando delle giovani ha detto che in molte hanno perso il lavoro, "il fidanzato e forse non lo troveranno più" e in alcuni casi i genitori "hanno chiuso il loro esercizio commerciale". Una trentina di ragazze si sono vista la vita "rovinata" dal processo in quanto hanno avuto "come unico torto accettare un invito a cena da me". In serata, tornando sul tema del mantenimento delle giovani ha aggiunto: "Quando uno ha una barca non deve preoccuparsi di quanto costa l'equipaggio". 

"I travestimenti erano gare di burlesque". L'ex premier ha ribadito che a casa sua si tenevano solo "cene eleganti" e che dopo cena si scendeva al piano sottostante in un locale "che era la vecchia discoteca dei miei figli". A chi gli ha fatto notare che le ragazze facevano spettacoli con travestimenti da poliziotta e altro.

Berlusconi ha sottolineato "facevano gare di burlesque ³e si esercitavano".  E ancora: "Le ragazze, le donne sono per loro natura esibizioniste".  In seguito ha parlato di atmosfera di "gioiosità, serenità e simpatia". Nel pomeriggio, rispondendo ancora una volta a una domanda sul burlesque, Berlusconi ha detto che riprenderebbe a fare "le gare di burlesque" a casa sua, perché è uno spettacolo che a lui piace molto "meno estremo di quello che si vede in Tv e in teatro". 

"I costumi regalati da Gheddafi". L'ex premier ha dichiarato che non c'era nessun travestimento da suora, ma che le giovani ospiti delle cene per mascherarsi avevano a disposizione una sessantina di costumi, regalati a Berlusconi dall'ex leader libico Muhammar Gheddafi. Ha inoltre ribadito di non aver aver "mai pagato una donna per fare sesso". Durante la sua deposizione ha aggiunto che era suo "dovere fare quella telefonata in questura" perchè la ragazza gli era stata segnalata come la nipote di Mubarak. 

"Ruby? Mi ha fatto pena". L'ex premier ha risposto a una domanda sui suoi rapporti con Ruby. "Mi ha fatto pena. Ha raccontato una vita drammatica dicendo di essere stata buttata fuori dalla famiglia, perché si era convertita alla religione cattolica. Si era costruita un'esistenza fantasiosa, vergognandosi della realtà. Decidemmo di aiutarla per evitare che si prostituisse".  Ora però, ha aggiunto prima di lasciare Palazzo di Giustizia, non viene dato più alcun aiuto alla ragazza, perché "ha trovato una persona perbene che l'ha sposata".

"Il video di Fini? Una balla". Alla domanda del video su il presidente della Camera, Gianfranco Fini, l'ex premier ha risposto: "E' una balla", smentendo di avere mai fatto vedere un video satirico con protagonista Fini a una delle sue ospiti. A parlarne, sentita come teste in aula, era stata una delle ragazze che frequentavano villa San Martino, Imane Fadhil. Il  racconto della giovane marocchina viene smentito da Berlusconi che chiude il discorso con un "stiamo valutando una denuncia per diffamazione".

Le testimonianze. Oggi in aula è stato il momento delle testimonianze di Giorgia Iafrate, Pietro Ostuni e altri due funzionari di polizia di turno in questura a Milano la notte tra il 27 e il 28 maggio 2010. Quel giorno Berlusconi telefonò più volte chiedendo che Ruby, fermata per un furto, fosse affidata alla consigliera regionale Pdl Nicole Minetti. L'ex presidente del Consiglio motivò la richiesta dicendo che la giovane marocchina era la nipote dell'ex presidente egiziano Hosni Mubarak.

Il colloquio con la ragazza. "Fu Ruby a dirmi di non essere la nipote di Mubarak, ma che a volte si spacciava come tale" ha dichiarato Giorgia Iafrate al banco dei testimoni. Secondo la teste, dunque, era chiaro fin dall'inizio che la giovane non era la nipote del presidente egiziano.   "Non ci fu nemmeno bisogno di attivare il canale diplomatico", ha precisato Iafrate  spiegando di aver riferito al capo di gabinetto della Questura di Milano Ostuni del suo colloquio con la ragazza marocchina.
 La telefonata di Berlusconi. Del fatto che Ruby non fosse la nipote di Mubarak era convinto anche Ostuni. In aula il capo di gabinetto ha raccontato della telefonata che ricevette la sera del 27 maggio quando il caposcorta gli passò al telefono l'allora premier, Berlusconi. "Mi disse che c'era una ragazza in questura che gli era stata segnalata come nipote di Mubarak e che sarebbe arrivata la consigliera parlamentare Nicole Minetti che si sarebbe fatta carico della situazione per l'affidamento".

Il ruolo della Minetti. La ragazza fu affidata a Nicole Minetti tra le 2 e 2,30, mentre la famiglia della minore in Sicilia fu contattata solo verso le 4 del 28 maggio.  Dal racconto di Ostuni emerge che "non c'era altra possibilità oltre all'affidamento alla signora Minetti dal momento che mancavano posti disponibili nelle comunità e che non si poteva trattenere una minore in questura per la notte". Il pm dei minori aveva dato indicazioni di identificare con certezza la ragazza e di affidarla a qualcuno solo dopo aver adempiuto a tale dovere.

(20 aprile 2012)

http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2012/04/20/news/processo_ruby_berlusconi_in_aula-33624884/index.html?ref=search

The 100 Most Influential People in the World

Mario Monti    Prime Minister

By LARRY SUMMERS                                                Wednesday, Apr. 18, 2012

They are the people who inspire us, entertain us, challenge us and change our world. Meet the breakouts, pioneers, moguls, leaders and icons who make up this year's TIME 100

At this moment, Mario Monti is the world's most important ex-economics professor. True, Ben Bernanke's monetary-policy decisions will move the needle in the U.S., but the fate of a continent rests on Monti's shoulders. If he can continue to institute meaningful reform, Europe will successfully weather the debt crisis. If he cannot, the vision of a unified Europe will unravel.Already he has pulled Italy from the ledge by standing up to vested interests — taxi drivers, pharmacists and railway workers — to increase competition and renew economic vitality. Instituting these reforms took great courage, particularly in a country where leaders have too often proved beholden to powerful lobbies. He has taken painful steps to cut spending, raise taxes and reduce Italy's budget deficit. As a result, the nation's bond yields have tightened significantly, and imminent fears about the monetary union's collapse have subsided.Monti, 69, knows that growth is what is most important. Reforming Italy's two-tier labor system to foster such growth will be his most arduous task. However, given the courage and dexterity he's displayed thus far, I trust that he's up to the challenge. The stakes could hardly be higher.Summers is a former Treasury Secretary and current professor at Harvard University

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2111997,00.html

Berlusconi to abandon frontline politics

February 3, 2012 3:46 pm

By Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti in Rome

Silvio Berlusconi has declared he is “stepping aside” from frontline Italian politics, revealing he has no intention of running again as prime minister.

In his first interview since resigning amid turmoil on financial markets in November, Mr Berlusconi spoke to the Financial Times at his Rome residence on subjects from what he called a media-inspired furore over his “bunga bunga” parties to his anger at “leftwing” magistrates hounding him in the courts and his drive to promote political and judicial reforms.

Mr Berlusconi also gave his strongest endorsement to date of the technocratic government led by Mario Monti which took over from his own, in particular its intention to implement labour market reforms opposed by trade unions.

Mr Berlusconi’s praise for Mr Monti – uttered with no conditions attached, although with some reservations over tax increases imposed in December – is likely to please investors and European leaders concerned that Italy’s former prime minister might try to destabilise the new government and stage a political comeback.

“I have now stepped aside, even in my party,” Mr Berlusconi said, noting his three election victories since 1994 had made him Italy’s longest serving postwar prime minister. His centre-right People of Liberty party is entering a transition period after 18 years under his leadership.

Mr Berlusconi said he resigned in November because he had been attacked “by an obsessive campaign by the national and foreign media that blamed me personally and the government for the high spread of Italian state bonds and the crisis on the stock market”.

“After having evaluated the causes of the crisis, which did not rest in Italy but in Europe and the euro, I believed that if I had stayed in government I would have damaged Italy as we would have had more terrible media campaigns,” he said.

“With a sense of responsibility, though having a majority in both houses of parliament … I stepped aside and with elegance.”

An animated Mr Berlusconi insisted that he was “still young” at 75, showing a bruise he said came from playing ice hockey with Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister. But Mr Berlusconi indicated that he would be getting too old to run for prime minister again in elections expected in the spring of 2013.

Instead Mr Berlusconi reiterated his backing for Angelino Alfano, the 41-year-old former justice minister from Sicily and secretary of his People of Liberty party, as his heir apparent. But for the first time he also made clear that the party, still the largest in parliament, would hold primaries to choose its candidate for prime minister.

Mr Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul, showed he had no intention of quitting politics entirely, signalling that he would remain influential behind the scenes as the party’s “founding father”. He also said he might stand for election as a member of parliament, saying that opinion polls gave him much higher ratings than France’s Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel in Germany.

“I still have strong popular backing, almost twice as much as my colleagues Merkel and Sarkozy,” he said. “In opinion polls, I personally have 36 per cent support. If I walk out in the street I stop the traffic. I am a public danger and I cannot go out to do the shopping!”

Mr Berlusconi’s declarations – which will doubtless be met with scepticism by his critics – could throw wide open the race to succeed the unelected Mr Monti who has also made clear that he will not stand for office when his mandate is over.

Mr Alfano’s bid for the party leadership is not assured. And the centre-left Democratic party, led by Pierluigi Bersani, is sorely divided over Mr Monti’s proposed labour reforms. Commentators anticipate a wholesale shake-up of Italian politics, with attention focusing on whether Corrado Passera – the former head of Intesa Sanpaolo, a major bank, chosen as industry minister by Mr Monti – will decide to run for office.

Showing flashes of his former combative self, Mr Berlusconi said Italy’s postwar constitution made the country virtually ungovernable and needed reforms to give the prime minister more authority, cut the number of small parties in parliament and limit the influence of what he called a leftist-dominated judiciary that meddled in politics.

“The hope is that this government, which is supported for the first time by the whole of parliament, will have the chance to propose great structural reforms, starting from the state’s institutional architecture, without which we cannot think of having a modern and truly free and democratic country,” he said.

While attacking the foreign media in particular for damaging his image abroad over his alleged personal scandals, Mr Berlusconi said he was “serene” about the outcome of his two separate trials on charges – which he denies – of corrupting his former UK lawyer to give false evidence, and having a relationship with an alleged underage prostitute.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/65784254-4e6e-11e1-8670-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1lMErflea

The wishes and worries of a parenthetic revolutionary

By Peter Spiegel and Guy Dinmore

Italy’s technocratic prime minister has no criticism of ratings downgrades – just of persistent policy weakness at the European leveI

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If there is anyone who should be angered by Standard & Poor’s raft of eurozone downgrades, it would seemingly be the prime minister of Italy, whose debt was cut two notches with a warning of more to come. But on the first trading day after the credit rating agency’s verdict, Mario Monti – a respected economist who became Italy’s technocratic premier after the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi in November – is buoyant.

In an interview, not only does Mr Monti tell the Financial Times he agrees with almost everything in S&P’s analysis, but he jokes that he could almost have written it himself.

“If I ever dictated anything, it must have been what S&P had to say about domestic Italian economic policy,” he chuckles, before quickly correcting himself: “I never said the three letters BBB,” a reference to Italy’s new S&P rating of triple B plus. Apart from Cyprus, it is the lowest standing of any country in the eurozone not to have undergone a recent bail-out.

So pleased is Mr Monti with the report that on Monday he almost bounds to pick up a copy. It lies on his desk, a grandiose antique befitting the gold leaf, chandeliers and frescoed ceiling of his Roman office but cluttered with the detritus of a workaday economist: teetering stacks of paper, a half-empty plastic bottle of water, a personal inkjet printer.

The reason for his pleasure is apparent as he reads from the report. “It’s very interesting when they go through the various factors, and concerning the political risk factor they say there is one negative: ‘The European policymaking and political institutions, with which Italy is closely integrated’,” he says. “And then they go on, saying, ‘Nevertheless, we have not changed our political risk score for Italy. We believe that the weakening policy environment at European level is to a certain degree offset by a strong domestic Italian capacity’.”

The upshot is clear: Mr Monti’s 60 days in office have been enough to convince the agency that his government is on a path of reform that could return the country to growth and shrink its debt levels, but that European Union mismanagement of the eurozone debt crisis is dragging down struggling countries, including Italy with its €1,900bn ($2,400bn) debt mountain.

The prime minister’s endorsement of the judgment is all the more remarkable as it comes as many of his counterparts have spent the days since last Friday’s downgrades condemning the analysis. Olli Rehn, economics chief at the European Commission, the EU’s executive, regretted the downgrades and called them “inconsistent”, while other Commission officials intimated that S&P was improperly trying to inject itself into decision-making. Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, opined that the rating agency had misunderstood how much progress had been made.

“I think I’m the only one in Europe not to have criticised the rating agencies,” Mr Monti boasts.

His challenge to European economic orthodoxy could mark a new, uncertain direction for management of the eurozone crisis. Until now, leaders in the single currency’s debt-laden periphery who fell into the EU elite’s “good student” category – Ireland’s Brian Cowen, Spain’s José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Greece’s George Papandreou – were cast aside once they lost domestic political support.

But at 68, Mr Monti appears unwilling to play the good student and comes with the credibility and stature those others lacked. He spent 10 years holding two of the European Commission’s most important economic portfolios – taking on Microsoft and General Electric as competition commissioner, after five years overseeing financial regulation and the EU’s internal market – while the likes of Angela Merkel of Germany and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy were still junior ministers.

His long résumé in Brussels may leave him vulnerable at home, where his lack of formal political allies and electoral mandate complicates his reform efforts, a point he readily admits. But that same international standing poses an unprecedented and potentially uncomfortable dynamic for high-level decision-making in Brussels, particularly since Mr Monti is seen – rightly or wrongly – as having been the EU leadership’s preferred candidate to replace the troublesome Mr Berlusconi. He is, in that sense, a challenger from the inside.

. . .

Over the course of the 90-minute interview, Mr Monti is careful not to challenge his counterparts directly. Asked whether the S&P analysis is a condemnation of Ms Merkel, who is widely viewed as the driver of the current response to the eurozone crisis, he is diplomatic: “I don’t think we can really single out one country or one person,” he says.

Later on, when asked how concerned he is that strikes by taxi drivers and pharmacists could derail his reforms at home, he insists that when he wakes up in the morning, he is more concerned with “European leadership” than domestic unrest. “European leadership – not the German chancellor,” he quickly clarifies.

Despite this diplomacy, his ensuing analysis directly challenges the Berlin consensus that financial markets will respond in a positive manner only to hefty doses of bitter austerity medicine. Growth and not austerity should be the focus of eurozone policymaking, Mr Monti says, and more effort should be made to drive down borrowing costs of the struggling periphery – a stance that German officials have pointedly resisted, fearing it will relieve pressure on Greece, Spain and, most prominently, Italy to reform.

“I am never saying to Italians that I’m asking for huge sacrifices because Germany or the ECB or the EU asks us to do so,” Mr Monti says. “This would be disloyal, and I’m convinced it is for the good of future generations of Italians. But as the country approaches a structure that is the one that Europe wants each country to have, there has to be a visible improvement somewhere else. In a country like Italy now, the somewhere else can only be interest rates [on Italian bonds].”

The relationship between Mr Monti and Ms Merkel could prove the pivotal one in the next phase of the crisis, particularly as Mr Sarkozy becomes more preoccupied with his own survival with French elections just months away. Ms Merkel has showered praise on Mr Monti’s efforts. But by pressing for help in pushing down bond yields, he is making clear that he wants something in return – be it a commitment to so-called “eurobonds” backed by all 17 eurozone members or an increase in the €440bn eurozone rescue fund. Both of those would rely heavily on Germany’s balance sheet and both have been resisted by Berlin.

“I’m convinced, and the IMF is also convinced, that the more pledges are made [to the rescue fund], the higher the volume of pledges made, the smaller the probability that a single euro of cash will have to be disbursed,” Mr Monti says.

The relationship could prove difficult, not least because of the battering Italy took from EU leaders during Mr Berlusconi’s reign. Mr Monti makes clear he feels the need to show Italy his economic reforms are being driven by more than “just a pat on the shoulder to the prime minister by chancellor Merkel”. Italians can be won over only if they “see that the country is well-respected in Europe – don’t underestimate this aspect”, he adds.

Germany may be the most important EU economy but at the same time “it is one of us and it also has obligations to which it normally complies”, Mr Monti says, recalling run-ins he had with Berlin as a commissioner. “Certainly the bigger you are the more responsibilities you have and I think that, as also I hope, there will be an EU push for growth, just as a push in fiscal discipline; Germany will have to play a huge role.”

. . .

Italy’s next push for growth comes on Thursday when the cabinet is set to approve what Mr Monti calls a “huge set of measures to open competition”. Targets are taxi operators, pharmacies, energy providers and professions such as doctors, lawyers and notaries. The move is aimed at “the little and big rents and privileges that were the sedimentation of decades of private anticompetitive practices” as well as restrictions imposed by the public sector.

Although he sees his administration as a “parenthesis” before the return of a democratically elected government, Mr Monti agrees he could be bringing about a “revolution”, at least in terms of the number of measures he intends to pass before elections due next year.

Will it last? If Italians see their nation’s cost of borrowing falling, “the political parties will not dare stop the experiment before it has to stop”, he replies. “And in my view the political parties will not dare go back to the acrimonious, superficial and tough confrontation that animated parliament. The image and style of the public debate has changed.”

Despite the net €20bn austerity package of higher taxes and cuts in public spending passed last month, aimed at eliminating the budget deficit by 2013, Mr Monti has little to show so far in terms of restored market confidence. Already back in recession, Italy risks a death spiral of falling output requiring more austerity. The yield gap between Italian and German 10-year bonds remains at around 5 percentage points, at a rate close to an unsustainable 7 per cent.

“Monti is putting pressure on Germany because the markets are heaping more pressure on Italy. S&P’s downgrade brings Italy’s credit rating closer to junk status,” says Nicholas Spiro, a London-based sovereign debt analyst. “Italy has its back up against the wall and has not been the master of its own destiny for some time.”

For the moment, Mr Monti has public support behind him. He notes that “monumental” pension reforms adopted last month – to the envy of France – were met by only three hours of strike action. His approval rating as measured by Ipsos, a polling agency, stands at 61 per cent, more than double Mr Berlusconi’s and comfortably above that of Pierluigi Bersani, whose centre-left coalition would probably win elections if the government were suddenly to fall.

Too much success could also be a problem, Mr Monti says. Parties could become “jealous” if they see public support for technocrats remaining high while confidence in political parties remains low. Mr Berlusconi’s People of Liberty and Mr Bersani’s Democrats are in such disarray over policies and future leadership that they are in no state to risk early elections, which most Italians do not want.

“If and when success comes, you will find us not really taking credit,” he says. But returning to his favourite theme, the prime minister concludes: “My ambition is that Italy becomes a boring country, in relative terms. It is really in the hands of Europe.”

Additional reporting by Giulia Segreti

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/faaef4aa-4101-11e1-b521-00144feab49a.html#axzz1jd2gPpw1