Premier Acquitted of Falsifying Documents
Italy’s highest court acquitted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of charges that he falsified documents when buying a film company.
The verdict clears the billionaire media baron of a conviction for false bookkeeping and vacates a 16-month prison sentence handed out by a trial court in December 1997.
The Medusa film company case was one of several that have dogged Berlusconi. The cases grew out of corruption probes of the early 1990s that revealed kickbacks between businessmen and politicians. Berlusconi, who acquired Medusa in 1987, had maintained his innocence and claimed he was the victim of political vendettas.
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