Photo: Silvio Berlusconi casting his vote in the general elections, May 2006.
Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian Prime Minister and richest Italian businessman, had a lot to celebrate this week. The court of cessation cleared him of alleged corruption charges in connection with the sell-off of the semi-private comestible good company SME in the 1980s. The Cavaliere’s company Fininvest allegedly had bribed judges to prevent the sale to rival and industrialist Carlo De Benendetti, a charge cleared now in court. Berlusconi called the 11-year-long investigation as “dishonorable hate campaign… Billions were spent on an investigation in which I never should have been caught in.”
