http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5750833.ece
Richard Owen in Milan
A judge was today expected to deliver her verdict on whether David Mills, the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, took $600,000 (then £350,000) of bribes from Silvio Berlusconi to give false evidence on his behalf in corruption trials.
After hearing the final prosecution arguments, Judge Nicoletta Gandus adjourned the final hearing of a trial which has lasted more than three years and withdrew to consider her verdict.
At 2pm (1300GMT), she said she would confirm when an announcement would be made, with Mr Mills' fate believed to be disclosed by the end of the day.
If convicted, Mr Mills’ Italian defence lawyers said that he would launch an initial appeal, which is likely to take two years, and if necessary a further appeal to the Supreme Court.
By the time the appeals process was exhausted, he would be unlikely to go to prison since the time allowed for a definitive sentence would have expired under Italy’s statute of limitations.
Mr Mills, 64, who is alleged to have used the bribe to pay off a loan guaranteed by a London home that he owned with Ms Jowell, the Olympics Minister, has denied any wrongdoing. He has so far exercised his right under Italian law not to appear in person.
Ms Jowell was cleared of breaking ministerial rules after Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, and Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, accepted her explanation that her husband had not told her about the money until four years later.
Mr Berlusconi, 72, had also been a defendant until a law last June granted him immunity from prosecution as Prime Minister. His personal lawyers then objected to Mr Mills being tried alone, saying that - if he was found guilty - the Prime Minister would have been deemed guilty by association.
Mr Mills is accused of accepting the bribe from Mr Berlusconi for testimony that he gave as a tax lawyer in two corruption trials in 1997 and 1998. In a letter in 2004, Mr Mills told his accountant, Bob Drennan: “I turned some very tricky corners, to put it mildly, and so kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble he would have been in had I said all I knew.”
Mr Mills, in a written statement to the court last month, insisted that he had “never been corrupted by anyone” and apologised to Mr Berlusconi for causing him “trouble.” However, Gabriella Vanadia, a lawyer for the Prime Minister’s office, but not Mr Berlusconi personally, sided with the prosecution and told the court that the State accepted the allegation that Mr Mills had accepted the bribe.
She said the State was demanding moral damages of €250,000 for perversion of the course of justice.
Ms Vanadia said that the prosecution’s reconstruction of the transactions showed that a “perfect crime” devised by Mr Mills had not succeeded. She said.