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Berlusconi sentenced to one-year jail term in wiretap transcript case

07 March 2013 15:48 (UTC +04:00)

Berlusconi's younger brother, Paolo, the publisher of right wing newspaper Il Giornale, was also handed a prison term of two years and three months for the publication of the illegally-obtained transcript that was part of an investigation into a failed takeover bid.

The wiretap featured a conversation in 2005 between Piero Fassino, a center-left political opponent of Berlusconi, and Giovanni Consorte, the former chairman of Unipol insurance group, historically linked to the Italian left.

Fassino, who is today the mayor of Turin, was recorded as saying "we have a bank" while Unipol was close to taking over one of Italy's most important banks, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. The court also ordered that Silvio and Paolo Berlusconi would have to pay 80,000 euros (104,000 U.S. dollars) in damages to Fassino.