The Berlusconi bribe

Yet more sleaze associated with New Labour. This time it results in 4 and a half years. By an Italian Court of all places!

The Times reports:

David Mills, the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, was given a jail sentence today for accepting a bribe of $600,000 (at the time £350,000) from Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, to give false evidence on his behalf in corruption trials.

Judge Nicoletta Gandus sentenced Mills to four years and six months in jail and ordered him to pay legal costs of €25,000 (£22,000), though Mills hopes to avoid prison by stringing out the appeals process.

Throughout the trial Mills exercised his right under Italian law not to appear in person and he was not in court to hear the verdict.

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