Berlusconi and Mills Sent To Trial in Mediaset Fraud Case
Italy's Former premier Silvio Berlusconi has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud at his private TV network company Mediaset .
Judge Fabio Paparella sent 13 others to trial, including Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri and British corporate lawyer David Mills, the estranged husband of Britain's Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell; and several top former officials at Berlusconi's Fininvest family holding company .
For Berlusconi the most serious charge is tax fraud which carries a sentence of up to 6 years .
The trial, following a four-year investigation, will begin in Milan on November 21, judicial sources said . The defendants face charges ranging from tax fraud, false accounting and embezzlement to money laundering .
For Berlusconi the most serious charge is tax fraud which carries a sentence of up to 6 years .
The defendants all deny wrongdoing .
There was no immediate response from Berlusconi, Mills or Mediaset .
The case centres on Mediaset's purchase of TV rights for US films before 1999, done through two offshore firms .
Prosecutors believe that the purchase costs of US films were artificially inflated, allowing Mediaset to avoid tax amounting to almost 125 billion old lire. They also say a slush fund was created for Berlusconi and his family. Mills advised and acted for Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul, for more than 20 years. He allegedly set up two off-shore companies for Berlusconi in the early 1990s .
Milan prosecutors have also asked that Berlusconi and Mills be sent to trial in a separate corruption case . They suspect Berlusconi of having bribed the lawyer to protect him in two previous corruption trials .
Mills is alleged to have received $600,000 for not revealing details of Berlusconi's media empire
Prosecutors say Mills, who separated from his wife earlier this year, received $600,000 from Berlusconi as payment for not revealing details of the Italian centre-right leader's media empire in two court cases .
Berlusconi and Mills deny wrongdoing, insisting that Mills received the money from Neapolitan shipping magnate Diego Attanasio .
Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, has repeatedly accused Milan prosecutors of hounding him for political reasons .
Over the past decade, he has been at the centre of numerous corruption investigations into his vast business empire .
He denies all wrong-doing and has never received a guilty verdict .
In some cases he has been cleared because of the statute of limitations or changes to the law introduced by his government, which lost power in the April general election .