Berlusconi acquitted in the Ruby ter trial of Siena- Corriere.it

The former premier was acquitted in one of the ribs of the so-called Ruby ter: all trials that see the Knight accused of corruption for money paid to people who testified in the first and second strand of the story

Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted in the Ruby ter trial of Siena because the fact does not exist.

After postponements, controversies and requests for recusal, the Sienese sentence (here all the stages of the story) arrived. And Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted of the charges of corruption in judicial acts together with the pianist of Arcore Danilo Mariani. According to the judges, the former premier he would never pay to Mariani’s bank account with the reason for reimbursement of expenses an amount close to 170 thousand euros in three years to force him to declare the false about the so-called elegant dinners of Arcore, the evenings attended by some girls, renamed the Olgettine, and the young Tunisian Karima El Mahroug, called Ruby Rubacuori.

Thus ended yesterday afternoon, the Ruby Ter, one of the strands of the Milan process on Olgettine case in which the Knight had already been acquitted with full formula (final judgment) from the crime of extortion because the fact does not exist and from that of child prostitution because the fact does not constitute a crime. The former premier was accused of having convinced the dancer Ruby to silence thanks to donations of over seven million euros in cash and various gifts.

Ruby Ter’s acquittal came later two no of the court. The first, against the request of the defense lawyers, to hear three new witnesses: Berlusconi’s accountant Giuseppe Spinelli, the musician Mariano Apicella and Mariani’s wife, Simonetta Losi. The second no had come with the announcement of the defense of an instance of recusal of the new college judge that he would then have to formalize within three days. In this case the court, chaired by Simona Spina, had met for an hour and had decided that the mere existence of a statement of objection could not lead to the judge’s inability to proceed further in the discussion. The college’s decision provoked immediate political reactions.

And the leader of Forza Italia in the Justice Committee in the Chamber, Pierantonio Zanettin, had commented that in Siena the traditional fiefdom of the Democratic Party, the court chaired by Simone Spina, a well-known exponent of the democratic judiciary, instead manifests a unjustified haste to go to sentence wondering if you wanted in some way block the way for our leader’s candidacy to the Quirinale.

In the indictment the prosecutor had asked for a 4-year sentence both for Berlusconi and for the pianist Mariani. The latter, last May, had already been already sentenced to 2 years of prison with conditional suspension of the sentence for perjury. The defence instead he claimed that the money paid was the legitimate compensation for the musician’s work.

The trial is one of the sections of the so-called Ruby ter: all photocopy trials that see the Knight accused of corruption for money paid to soften witnesses in the first and second strand of the story. These texts would have facilitated Berlusconi’s acquittal.

The whole process had undergone in the past few months numerous postponements because of the health conditions of the former premier. Until Berlusconi himself, for which the judges in Milan had asked for an expert opinion to assess their real ability to attend the trial, had agreed to be tried in absentia. The relations between Berlusconi and the then minor Karima El Mahroug, known as Ruby, gave rise to three trials: the first was the former prime minister accused with the accusation of having had relations with the girl (resolved with acquittal) ; the second concerned Emilio Fede and Lele Mora for having hired the girls who took part in the evenings in Arcore. Finally, the Ruby ter, for the money paid to the witnesses of the various trials.

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