Berlusconi loses passport, can’t go outside Italy
20 Dec 2013 12:49 AM GMT
Berlusconi’s passport was confiscated when he was convicted of tax fraud in August and sentenced to four years in prison, commuted to a year under house arrest or in community service.
He has repeatedly denied suggestions he might flee abroad, a move that would follow in the footsteps of another ex-prime minister, Bettino Craxi, who spent the last years of his life in the 1990s in Tunisia after a corruption conviction.
The court on Monday dismissed the argument of Berlusconi’s lawyers that stopping him going to the meeting flouted Europe’s Schengen accord on the free movement of citizens, the sources said.
The accord abolished border controls but was not set up to allow people to travel without valid documents, the court ruled, according to the sources.
Mariastella Gelmini, former education minister and a senior official in Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, said the court’s decision was part of “a chain of attacks” aimed at denying Berlusconi his political rights.
“His absence from the meeting of the European Popular Party should be good reason for all the other European center-right leaders to reflect on the state of justice in Italy,” she said.
Berlusconi’s spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The billionaire media tycoon was invited to the European Popular Party meeting by Joseph Daul, the head of the movement’s group at the European Parliament.
He has repeatedly denied suggestions he might flee abroad, a move that would follow in the footsteps of another ex-prime minister, Bettino Craxi, who spent the last years of his life in the 1990s in Tunisia after a corruption conviction.
The court on Monday dismissed the argument of Berlusconi’s lawyers that stopping him going to the meeting flouted Europe’s Schengen accord on the free movement of citizens, the sources said.
The accord abolished border controls but was not set up to allow people to travel without valid documents, the court ruled, according to the sources.
Mariastella Gelmini, former education minister and a senior official in Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, said the court’s decision was part of “a chain of attacks” aimed at denying Berlusconi his political rights.
“His absence from the meeting of the European Popular Party should be good reason for all the other European center-right leaders to reflect on the state of justice in Italy,” she said.
Berlusconi’s spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The billionaire media tycoon was invited to the European Popular Party meeting by Joseph Daul, the head of the movement’s group at the European Parliament.
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