Italy as seen by the BBC

Berlusconi to be tried for fraud

Silvio Berlusconi denies he has done anything wrong

An Italian judge has ruled that former PM Silvio Berlusconi should stand trial over alleged fraud concerning his family's media company Mediaset.

He is one of 14 people sent for trial by Judge Fabio Paparella in the northern city of Milan.

It follows an investigation into claims of embezzlement, false accounting, tax fraud and money laundering in TV rights deals between 1994 and 1999.

Pete's Points:
For those of us who are skeptics and have considerable doubts about the concept of accountability as applied to senior politicians or indeed people who are just plain wealthy and/or influential, if this trial goes ahead, how it proceeds and what it finds will be an interesting time.

Do I reckon that it will achieve anything? Nah!

Even if we assume that there actually is evidence that will enable a trial to find Mr Berlusconi guilty I will lay odds that too many people owe him too many favours for the outcome to be anything other than a clean slate!

Keep your eye on this one folks and just look at the statistics everywhere in the world.

The folks who are incarcerated seem to have different statistics, however they seem to have one thing in common - they are generally NOT wealthy and influential!