Italian prosecutors were on Thursday night considering whether to press a judge to schedule a trial for Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, and David Mills, a British corporate lawyer who worked for him, on charges of corruption.
Prosecutors in Milan received a request from Mr Mills?s lawyers this week for more time to study the mass of documents connected with the case. But the prosecutors are anxious not to delay the technical legal process too long because, even if the two men stand trial, a statute of limitations annulling the case could kick in next year.
The affair has created a political storm in the UK and Italy because Mr Mills is the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, Britain?s culture secretary, who has come under pressure to resign, and comes at a time when Mr Berlusconi is fighting to remain premier in Italy?s general election on April 9-10.
The focus of the prosecutors? attention is a $600,000 payment that they suspect Mr Mills received from Mr Berlusconi in return for giving false testimony at two trials in the 1990s in which the premier was accused of corruption.
In July 2004 Mr Mills told the prosecutors that he had received the money from Mr Berlusconi, but four months later he retracted his statement and said the funds had come from a different client.
Speaking on Italian television on Monday night, Mr Berlusconi strongly denied that he had any involvement with the money paid to Mr Mills.
?I have sworn on my children that I knew nothing about this money. Then again, I am prime minister, and by definition the prime minister cannot lie, otherwise he would have to go. I swear here in front of these television cameras that I knew nothing about Mr Mills?s money,? Mr Berlusconi said.
He also said it was impossible that any manager of Fininvest, the Berlusconi family-owned business empire, could have transferred money to Mr Mills.
?I never knew this Mr Mills at all,? the prime minister said. ?This story is invented, and shows that there are judges who are organically on the left and invent stories during an election period.?
