The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi appeared Monday in court in Milan for the first time in eight years, for a preliminary hearing for a possible trial, according to an AFP journalist.
He went directly to car inside the courthouse with his escort to visit the offices of a judge for preliminary hearings on the seventh floor of the imposing Palace of Justice in Milan.
This preliminary hearing, the first of a series of four or five, must be used to decide whether to be tried or not to tax evasion and breach of trust on the alleged overbilling of TV rights bought by Mediatrade-RTI, a company his empire, the Paramount and other U.S. majors.
Mr. Berlusconi made a hand sign to the many cameras waiting outside the entrance.Thirty activists from his party, the People of Freedom (PDL), also were waiting outside with banners proclaiming: "politics at the ballot box not in the courts," "Justice does not exist where there is no freedom "or" Silvio you must resist, resist, resist. "
The hearing scheduled at 08:00 GMT will be held in camera. However, Mr.Berlusconi might make a statement at its output.
Before going into court, the chief government complained in a telephone call to one of its private channels, the charges are "ridiculous and baseless."
He also lashed out at opponents of the leftist opposition, saying that "Italy, communism has never changed, there are still people who use the penal code as an instrument of ideological struggle."
