Italian court to decide British lawyer's fate in Berlusconi case

Italy's top appeals court was expected later Thursday to rule on the four-year-and-a-half year prison sentence against British lawyer David Mills in a corruption case involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Presiding Judge Torquato Gemelli opened morning proceedings in the Cassation Court hearing in Rome, DPA reported.

Last October, a Milan appeals court upheld Mills' February 2009 conviction and sentencing on charges that he accepted a 600,000- dollar bribe in 1998 in exchange for withholding court testimony in two trials in which Berlusconi was a defendant in the late 1990s.

In Italy, sentences become final only once they reach the third level of judgement through the Cassation Court.

The Cassation Court ruling is expected to have a significant impact on a separate judicial proceedings against Berlusconi.

Initially, Berlusconi was a co-defendant in the trial involving Mills, but the premier's case was frozen in 2008 after parliament - in which the governing conservatives enjoy a comfortable majority - passed a law granting immunity from prosecution to top officials, including the prime minister.

However, in October 2009, Italy's Constitutional Court lifted the immunity, ruling that government's law violated Italy's constitution.

The decision paved the way for a resumption of Berlusconi's trial.

Both Berlusconi and Mills, a tax lawyer and estranged husband of British Olympics Secretary, Tessa Jowell, have denied any wrongdoing.

Italian opposition leaders have repeatedly called on Berlusconi to resign over the Mills case, in which judges ruled Mills had lied to protect Berlusconi's business interests.

But media magnate-turned politician Berlusconi has steadfastly refused, repeating accusations that he is the victim of the communist-inspired judiciary's political vendetta against him.