ROME: Legal troubles have haunted Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, who faces a verdict on charges of bribery on Saturday, ever since the larger-than-life billionaire entered politics in the early 1990s.
He has been convicted three times in the past in 1997 and 1998 and sentenced to a total of six years and five months in prison for corruption, false accounting and the illicit financing of a political party.
The 75-year-old has never seen the inside of a jail cell, however, since all the convictions have since been either overturned or the cases have expired under a statute of limitations, voiding the original verdicts.
Here are the main facts and figures from Berlusconi's legal saga:
- 1994: Put on trial for bribing tax police, Berlusconi is eventually convicted in 1997 and sentenced to 33 months in prison. The case is overturned on appeal.
- 1995: Berlusconi is accused of financing the purchase of football player Gianluigi Lentini by his club AC Milan with a slush fund. The case expires in 2002, thanks to a law decriminalising false accounting passed by Berlusconi.
- 1995: Berlusconi is accused of tax fraud in the purchase of a luxury villa near Milan. The case expires under the statute of limitations.
- 1995: Accused of false accounting over his purchase of the cinema production group Medusa, Berlusconi is convicted and sentenced to 16 months in prison in December 1997. He is acquitted on appeal in February 2000.
- 1995: Berlusconi is charged with illegally financing the Italian Socialist Party through an offshore company. He is convicted and sentenced to 28 months in prison in July 1998 but the case runs out in October 1999.
February 25, 2012: A verdict is expected in a trial in which Berlusconi is accused of bribing his former British tax lawyer David Mills with $600,000 to provide false testimony in his favour in two previous court cases.
Berlusconi is also a defendant in three other trials:
"Mediaset" trial: Berlusconi is accused of artificially inflating the price of distribution rights for films sold and bought by companies belonging to his Mediaset business empire in order to hide revenue from tax authorities.
"Rubygate" trial: Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with an underage prostitute nicknamed "Ruby the Heart Stealer". Prosecutors say he also put pressure on police to free her from custody when she was arrested for stealing.
"Unipol" trial: Berlusconi is accused of violating official secrets after a newspaper belonging to his family published confidential transcripts of a conversation purporting to show shady dealings by a centre-left politician.
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