The former Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi, bribery trial will continue after he rejected a court order, judicial sources said.
The court ordered a check-up to decide the health condition of Berlusconi and if he can undergo a trial.
Last week, a court in Milan requested an expert’s opinion over the former PM’s health.
This was after his repeated hospital visits, which caused the delay of his trial multiple times.
Berlusconi said the decision to enforce unlimited psychiatric assessment on him was damaging his honor and confirms obvious prejudice against him.
That is according to a copy of a statement he deposited with the court and reported by Reuters.
Berlusconi said the trial would continue even if he’s absent, which his lawyer considered a “serious harm to his defense.”
The sources added that the court originally set the next hearing for November 17, but it may bring the date forward.
Trial History
The trial started in 2017 when the 84-year-old former PM was charged with bribing witnesses in a previous case.
He had charges of statutory rape, but he pleaded ‘not guilty’ and the court acquitted him
Berlusconi has been going to the hospital nonstop since he caught the COVID19 infection in September last year.
His health has drastically deteriorated as he has been to the hospital twice in a couple of weeks.
Berlusconi served four terms, but his last government failed in 2011 due to a debt crisis and a sex party scandal.
The former PM’s well-known ‘Bunga Bunga’ sex parties had models and a teenager nicknamed Ruby.
The parties were the reason for the 2015 “Ruby” trial, at which he pleaded not guilty.
Berlusconi had charges of several alleged finance crimes and got a tax fraud indictment in 2013, his only definitive one.
His party, the Forza Italia, has lost most of its backing but is still a significant party in politically-fragmented Italy.
