Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted of the charge of corruption in judicial documents in the Milan trial on the Ruby ter case. The 29 defendants in the Milanese trial in the Ruby ter case were all acquitted, some acquitted by prescription for minor positions. In addition to Silvio Berlusconi, the acquittals, always with the formula “because the fact does not exist”, concerned among others Karima el Mahroug and the 20 young former guests of the Arcore evenings. With the disposition read by the judges Tremolada-Gallina-Pucci of the criminal seventh of Milan, after just over two hours in the council chamber and over 6 years of trial, the allegations of corruption in judicial documents and perjury collapsed. Charges canceled for Berlusconi, accused of corruption and for which the prosecutor had asked for 6 years’ imprisonment and over 10 million euros in confiscation, and for most of the other 28 defendants, including, among others, Karima, the so-called ‘ex Olgettine’, about twenty in all, Ruby’s former lawyer, the lawyer Luca Giuliante, and Luca Risso, the young Moroccan’s ex-partner who was accused of money laundering. All acquitted of the charges, the Court established, “because the fact does not exist”. However, only a few charges were prescribed: a slander that was contested against Roberta Bonasia (against Ambra Battilana) and the alleged false testimonies attributed to Simonetta Losi, wife of the pianist from Arcore, and Maria Rosaria Rossi, former senator and former loyalist of the Knight. No confiscation obviously and indeed the release from seizure of the cash sums seized during the investigations. The prosecutor had asked for total sentences of around 100 years for 28 of the 29 defendants. An order already issued by the judges in November 2021 may have weighed on the verdict: they declared the reports of at least 18 young people returned in the Ruby trials “unusable”, because, according to the Court, they had already been investigated since March 2012 and heard in the courtroom with the guarantee of texts assisted by lawyers. With the collapse of the false testimonies, the related accusation of bribing witnesses could also have collapsed. The reasons in 90 days.
Ruby ter, Siciliano: ‘Result not totally unexpected’
The President of the Court of Milan Fabio Roia, in a note in which he anticipates the heart of the reasons for the sentence, explains that the young ones former guests of the Arcore evenings, heard in the 2 trials on the Ruby case, “they could not legitimately hold the public office of witness”, because they were to be investigated already at the time and felt like witnesses assisted by lawyers. Since there are no longer false testimonies, in essence, the connected accusation of corruption in judicial documents also falls because “the hypothesized corrupter, in this case Berlusconi“.
Silvio Berlusconi’s reaction was “of course relief on a story that has also involved him emotionally for a long time and that now, I hope, we can definitively close, given that we are at three out of three acquittals”. The lawyer Federico Cecconi explained this to reporters after speaking with the leader of FI.
“It is an acquittal with the broadest and fullest formula possible – Cecconi declared – I can only be enormously satisfied, three out of three!”, he concluded, also referring to the previous acquittals for the two strands in Siena and Rome.
“I was finally acquitted after more than eleven years of suffering, mud and incalculable political damagebecause I was lucky enough to be judged by magistrates who knew how to remain independent, impartial and correct in the face of the unfounded accusations that had been made against me,” Berlusconi wrote on social media.
Barbara Berlusconi: dad the most persecuted man in the world
“My father is the most persecuted man in the world, with 86 trials and more than 4000 hearings”. Thus Barbara Berlusconi, interviewed by ANSA, comments on the acquittal of Silvio Berlusconi in the Ruby ter trial. “It’s a surreal trial, which didn’t even have to start-she adds-she. A holdover from the first Ruby trial, in which my father had already been acquitted with full formula”. “The court today affirms that the fact does not even exist. As a daughter – she explains again – I feel a double bitterness: in addition to the damage to my image, not everyone understands how the trials affect the soul, but above all the health of the person under investigation”.
Marina Berlusconi: victory at too high a price
“Of course, the satisfaction is enormous, and the fact that justice finally recognizes the truth is important, but it is a victory that came at too high a price”: this is how Marina Berlusconi commented on Silvio Berlusconi’s acquittal in the Ruby ter trial. High price “not only for my father, also for all the people who love and esteem him, for the millions of Italians who have voted for him over the years. A persecution of this kind – underlined the Fininvest president – cannot be canceled like this, with a swipe of the sponge”.
“Ruby was all an invention – said Karima el Mahroug – my name remains Karima and now a nightmare is over. I need time to assimilate – she added – but I’m happy because finally a part of the truth has come out”. After the reading of the sentence, Karima El Mahroug presented herself in the courtroom. She shook hands with the assistant prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano and the prosecutor Luca Gaglio and released a few statements to reporters. “I didn’t imagine something like this – she said – I’m very happy. It was a liberation” from an event “that overwhelmed me” when “I was 17 and that was no small boulder”.
Ruby ter, Karima: ‘Berlusconi has always behaved well with me’
“There is no bitterness – commented the deputy prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano – it is our judicial system, we have worked with deep conviction and the evidence from our point of view has given us the conviction, which remains, that there has been false testimony and corruption. Let us first read the reasons”, explained Siciliano to those who asked her if the prosecutor will appeal.
“Wonderful news – commented the Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani – which does justice to a man attacked so unjustly for political reasons. None of us doubted his innocence. I hope that season is over: it was all a fabrication against him as evidenced by the fact that Berlusconi was acquitted because ‘the fact does not exist'”.
“Happy for Silvio’s acquittal after years of suffering, insults and useless controversies”, says the deputy prime minister and minister Matthew Salvini.
“Finally the ordeal ends! – he says in the Chamber of Deputies Paul Emilio Russo of FI – after years of unjust accusations – he adds, the ordeal is over”. All the deputies of Fi stood up to applaud, on live TV: the explanations of vote on the NGO were in progress.
“Forza Italia calls for the immediate scheduling of the bill on the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the political use of the judiciaryto shed light on 25 years of judicial struggles used as a weapon of political confrontation”. The group leader of Fi said in the Chamber Alexander Cattaneo expressing “bitter satisfaction” for the acquittal of Silvio Berlusconi in the Ruby Ter trial. “Let’s give President Berlusconi a hug and ask for the truth about years of fierce judicial battles”, she concludes.
“The acquittal of Silvio Berlusconi, to whom our full solidarity goes – says the political leader of Noi Moderati Maurizio Lupi – comes to the end of a process that has heavily conditioned the political and institutional life of the country and for this very reason we hope that it will be a new beginning, the dawn of a period in which there is a new relationship between politics and the judiciary, in which try to affirm your own ideas and vision without delegitimizing your opponent and without resorting to judicial shortcuts. This acquittal, the umpteenth for Berlusconi, must also be a boost to the now indispensable reform of Italian justice and the end of a justicialism that too often has turned into media pillory and persecution”.
For Raffaella Paitapresident of the Azione-Italia Viva group in the Senate, “the acquittal of Silvio Berlusconi from the corruption charge is good news for him but above all for the institutions”.
Ruby Ter, Casellati: ‘Happy, after so many years of suffering, truth restored’
Source: Ansa
I work as a news website author and mostly cover the opinion section. I have been writing since I was a teenager, and have always enjoyed telling stories. I studied journalism at university and loved every minute of it. After graduating, I decided to move to London and take up a position with a Global Happenings. It has been an incredible experience, learning about all sorts of different cultures and meeting some amazing people. My goal is to continue learning and growing in my career so that I can provide readers with the best possible content.
