Four years in jail demanded for minister (Tessa Jowell's) husband

[emad]

Richard Owen

Milan

Prosecutors have demanded a prison term of more than four years for David Mills, the British lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, for allegedly accepting a bribe from Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, to give false or misleading evidence.

Mr Mills is accused of accepting $600,000 from Mr Berlusconi for testimony that he gave as a tax lawyer in two corruption trials in 1997 and 1998. In a letter in 2004 Mr Mills told his accountant, Bob Drennan: “I turned some very tricky corners, to put it mildly, and so kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble he would have been in had I said all I knew.”

Mr Mills, 64, was initially accused together with Mr Berlusconi, 72, but the Italian leader put a law through Parliament after winning elections in April giving himself immunity from prosecution. A verdict is expected next month. The prosecution claims that the alleged bribe was used to pay off a joint mortgage held by Mr Mills and Ms Jowell on their London home.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5367750.ece

[emad]

1. Prosecutor's summing up:

"I want to show that Berlusconi's gift was not a one-off but was part of a long-running story. The expression 'on the payroll' is ugly but you can't sum up this concept any better," prosecuting magistrate Fabio De Pasquale said in his summing up.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE4BG6BN20081217

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. So Mills could go to jail for accepting a bribe from the PM

while the PM gets off scot-free? Nice work if you can get it ...

[LeftishBrit]

3. Very good point!

Apparently Berlusconi has a get-out-of-jail-free card through 'parliamentary immunity'. One law (or no law) for those in power; another law for everyone else.

[emad]

4. Yep, but UK Crown Prosecution Service has been protecting Mills'

ass since this furore started back in 2005/6.