New judicial trial on the case of the former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi begins in Milan. He is accused of corruption and financial frauds in 1994-1999.
It is a question of purchase by corporation "Mediaset” belonging to Berlusconi the rights to display the USAfilms on TV channels in Italy. According to the inquiry the transaction for the sum of almost 0,5 billion euro was accomplished by means of the offshore companies by-passing tax legislation of Italy.
Not for the first time Berlusconi collides with justice. Five times he was accused of criminal offences and courts sentenced him to imprisonment three times. In 1997 Berlusconi was recognized guilty of falsification of the financial reports during purchase of a film studio "Jellyfish" and sentenced to a year and four months of prison with an immediate canceling of a verdict in connection with amnesty. In 1998 he was condemned to two years and four months of imprisonment for illegal assets stripping from Fininvest. In 2000 Berlusconi was sentenced to two years and nine month for giving the bribes to tax inspectors in 1989 – 1993. Inall three cases verdicts were cancelled by the Supreme Cassational Court.
Scandals pursue Silvio Berlusconi since he has come to business and it has occurred already in an elementary school. They say the future prime-minister earned the first money having taken from schoolmates an entrance fee for viewing of free-of-charge doll performance. In MilanUniversitywhere mister Berlusconi studied as the lawyer he wrote for money term papers for other students. To pay for study he sold vacuum cleaners. Upon the end of the study in the University he was already the owner of the company Edilnord which dealt with real estate and construction. Business went on successfully – opponents of the future prime-minister already by that time explained it by close connections with city authorities. In 1975 Silvio Berlusconi established holding Fininvest which to the beginning of 90th had got into all spheres of life in Italy. Today Fininvest owns almost half of shares of the largest Italian non-state broadcaster Mediaset (channels Canale 5, Italia 1 and Retequattro) which divides all Italian TV viewers with state TV RAI. Besides Mister Berlusconi possesses the largest publishing house Mondadori (besides books it issues about 50 magazines), leading newspaper Il Giornale and influential weekly paper Panorama, bank Mediolanum, football club Milan and huge quantity of the enterprises in various spheres of business. Special name “berlusconism” is invented in Italy for this public phenomenon: the inhabitant lives in the house constructed by the head of the government, watches TV and reads press controllable by prime-minister, buys products in the shops belonging to Berlusconi and has launches in his restaurants, votes for his party and than goes to a football match to support football club Milan.
The president of Russia Vladimir Putin can be called true follower of Berlusconi. "Putinism" in Russiasurprisingly reminds "berlusconism" in Italyat its early stages but, as always in Russia, the Italian example here will receive improbable development. The country is larger and the presidential environment supervises, apparently, already everything including street toilets.
It’s logic that Berlusconi and Putin have old and touching friendship. They work together and even have a rest together.
Our president liked country house of Berlusconi "Certosa" so much that once he even sent his daughters Masha and Katya to spend their vacations there to lie on the sun and to swim. In fact the coast Costa-Smeralda is considered to be the purest in Italy. Berlusconi confirms it with own example. He always swims on Sardinianaked and changes his habit only on the arrival of dear visitors.
It’s not necessary to us to know how the elite in general spend its time. We can only assume only and only following our own perversity.
