Berlusconi ban from office 'sacrilege'

(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - Silvio Berlusconi has said that the application of a 2012 anti-corruption law that led to him being ejected from parliament last year was "sacrilege". He also said that there was no need for a pact with Premier Matteo Renzi over the election of the next Italian president, because his party's approval was needed for any candidate to succeed, according to excerpts of an interview in a new book by Italian journalist Bruno Vespa that have been released in advance.
    Berlusconi has always argued that the anti-corruption law was applied to him retroactively following a tax fraud conviction. The law was adopted before the supreme court upheld the conviction, although the original sentence predates it.
    Berlusconi reiterated that he is confident that the European Court of Human Rights will overturn the conviction for tax fraud on the trading of film rights by his media empire.
    He also repeated his assertion that the fall of the last of his three governments in 2011, during the peak of the eurozone crisis, was the result of "a quiet coup".