INES TABUSSO
00lunedì 20 febbraio 2006 18:40
Berlusconi hits out at Tessa Jowell's husband
· Italian prime minister denies providing 'gift'
· I'm innocent, says lawyer facing corruption inquiry
John Hooper in Rome
Monday February 20, 2006
The Guardian
David Mills, the husband of the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, came under attack at the weekend from the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, over an alleged "hush money" scandal in which both men risk being tried for corruption.
Mr Mills said the affair, which is threatening to dominate the Italian elections, had become "hideously embarrassing". But he insisted "I know I am innocent of these charges".
In the first sign of a rift between the two co-accused, Mr Berlusconi told a rally in Verona: "Someone has taken advantage of my name." He did not name anyone, but his remarks clearly referred to the publication on Saturday of a letter written by Mr Mills in which he said court testimony he gave in Italy had "kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble".
Mr Mills, an international corporate lawyer, wrote that $600,000 was later put into a fund for him with help from a "person connected to the B organisation". He added: "It needed to be done discreetly. And this was a roundabout way." Mr Mills has since changed his position and says he invented the story about Mr Berlusconi to get tax advice without revealing the identity of another Italian client.
Mr Mills helped Mr Berlusconi set up a network of offshore companies before the Italian magnate entered politics. Italian prosecutors later claimed it was used for illegal activities, including tax evasion, clandestine political funding and the bribing of judges. Mr Mills's corporate creations have figured in some of Italy's most high-profile recent political controversies.
The British lawyer has always maintained his role was strictly that of a professional adviser, and the use Mr Berlusconi made of the companies was his affair. He has testified for the prosecution against Mr Berlusconi in two trials. Neither they, nor any other involving his offshore empire, has led to a conviction.
The situation began to change only in 2003, when prosecutors started probing the use of offshore companies to trade film rights for Mr Berlusconi's TV networks. They concluded that Mr Mills was actively involved in running companies he set up, and that while collaborating with investigators on previous investigations he had withheld information which could have damaged Mr Berlusconi. Mr Mills vigorously denies both allegations.
Last April, prosecutors asked for him to be put on trial with 12 others including Mr Berlusconi, charged with tax evasion and money laundering. On Friday, it was learned they also planned to have Mr Mills and Mr Berlusconi charged with corruption over the payment mentioned in the letter published at the weekend. It was written by Mr Mills to his accountants in February 2004. Four months later, after being shown the letter by prosecutors, Mr Mills signed a statement broadly confirming its contents. However, he has subsequently retracted that statement.
In November 2004, he said yesterday, his lawyers presented the prosecutors with a dossier which "gave the true account". He said that he had only signed his earlier statement after 10 hours of "relentlessly hostile" interrogation. By the end, he was "grateful for the small mercy of having the interview come to an end and being still at liberty".
According to his revised version, he had written to his accountants because he needed advice on the tax status of "a large sum of money from a client, who had also become a close friend". For confidentiality, he decided "not to use my client's real name, but that of another friend and former client", a Berlusconi executive.
Mr Berlusconi, however, offered yet another explanation at the weekend. The tycoon turned politician, whose business interests are largely co-ordinated by a holding firm, Fininvest, said: "So as not to have to tell his partners in his legal practice what he had banked, he [Mills] could find no better solution than to say: 'It was a gift from Fininvest'." Mr Mills denied the accusation: "I paid the tax on this."
The rift between the two men widened further when Mr Mills contradicted an assertion by Mr Berlusconi that they had never met. He said: "I met him once for about an hour at Arcore [Mr Berlusconi's villa near Milan] in 1995."
According to the British lawyer, the true source of the money was not Mr Berlusconi, but a Neapolitan businessman, Diego Attanasio. He said: "In the summer of 2005, I was able to get hold of irrefutable third party documentary evidence of the true source of the money, which was forwarded to the prosecutors."
So why do they still want to charge him? According to Italian press reports yesterday, it is because Mr Attanasio denies Mr Mills's new version of events. Corriere della Sera said that last December 22 Mr Attanasio gave a statement that he could not have paid Mr Mills because he was in jail at the time, charged with corruption. Mr Mills said yesterday that that was nonsense. "He wasn't in prison at the time. It was in July 1997, just before he was arrested and put in the cooler for three months. I've got nine different bits of paper to show that he paid it."
Mr Mills's business interests have been a target for the tabloids since Labour first came to office, as his wife's career has taken her to a high profile cabinet role. Charges of conflict of interest involving ministerial spouses are taken seriously by MPs, and sometimes levelled unfairly for party advantage. There is no such suggestion in the Berlusconi affair, which is potentially more damaging to Mr Blair, as a political ally of the rightwing Italian prime minister, than to Ms Jowell. But the drip-drip of headlines will not be helpful in her Olympic role.