A Naples court on Wednesday
sentenced ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi and co-defendant Valter
Lavitola to three years in prison for bribing a former Senator
to switch sides, toppling the center-left government of Romano
Prodi in 2008.
"There were rumors but as I told the judge, I didn't know
anything about it," Prodi told ANSA Wednesday.
"If I had known I'd still be premier".
Berlusconi and journalist and wheeler-dealer Lavitola, the
former director of the Avanti! newspaper, were indicted in 2013
on charges of acting as a go-between in the case of Sergio De
Gregorio, who confessed to switching sides after receiving two
million euros from the centre-right leader during a centre-left
government led by Prodi, who beat Berlusconi in two general
elections.
De Gregorio testified in October last year that he and
Berlusconi had "adopted a strategy of urban warfare to
devastate" Prodi's shaky centre-left 2006-2008 coalition
government in what he called 'Operation Freedom' - a term
allegedly coined by Berlusconi.
"What we have here is a banal illicit contract, a question
of vile greed...a barter of money in exchange for...the function
of parliament," prosecutor Henry John Woodcock told the court in
his closing statement.
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