Berlusconi tax fraud sentence served, rules court

Milan, April 14 (IANS/AKI) Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has finished his sentence for tax fraud after doing 10-and-a-half months of community service at a nursing home, a Milan court said on Tuesday.

A judge had ordered Berlusconi to do 12 months of community service but the court knocked 45 days off the sentence after receiving positive reports on Berlusconi's attendance at the care home outside Milan, where he spent a morning a week with Alzheimer's patients.

Berlusconi will be given back his passport and a two-year ban on holding office is cancelled by Tuesday's court ruling. But the 78-year-old billionaire media mogul is still barred from election to public office for six more years under a 2012 anti-corruption law.

Berlusconi requested community service rather than house arrest after Italy's Supreme Court in August 2013 found him guilty of tax fraud involving his Mediaset company. He was handed a four-year sentence reduced to a year under an amnesty.

The three-times premier was ejected from the Italian Senate in November 2013 under the anti-graft law but has continued to lead his conservative Forza Italia party.

Berlusconi is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights against his ban on holding public office. He argues that the ban violates his rights under the Italian constitution as it was applied retroactively.

--IANS/AKI

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