Milan:
An Italian court threw out bribery charges against Silvio Berlusconi under the statute of limitations on Saturday after a five-year trial, in another judicial victory for the former prime minister.
Prosecutors had called for a five-year prison term for the ex-premier, who was accused of having paid off his former British tax lawyer David Mills to provide false testimony in his favour in two trials in the 1990s.
Judge Francesca Vitale spent three hours considering the verdict after defence lawyers presented their closing case, but took under a minute to tell a packed court that she ruled that the case had run out of time allowed by law.
Prosecutor Fabio de Pasquale looked downcast and told waiting hordes of journalists: "I just want to get out of here."
The court is expected to present its findings within 90 days, which will reveal whether the three judges hearing the trial believed Berlusconi to be guilty and whether they would have ruled against him had the case not expired.
The former premier's lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, said his client "deserves to be completely absolved."
The media magnate, who has always protested his innocence, was not in court. He had left Rome for Milan on Saturday morning, but had travelled to the northern Italian city to see his football team AC Milan play Juventus.
Despite his being convicted several times of corruption and false accounting in the past, all cases against Berlusconi have either been overturned or have expired after years of moving laboriously through Italy's justice system.
Berlusconi had been accused of paying his offshore tax expert $600,000 (445,000 euros). Mills was tried in absentia, convicted in February 2009 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
The verdict was later upheld but the case against Mills finally expired in 2010, although judges said they believed him guilty of "very serious" corruption.
A protester outside the court on Saturday held a banner reading: "Mills is the guilty corrupted party, Berlusconi is the innocent briber?"
Berlusconi did everything he could to put off a verdict against him in the Mills case, complaining that the judges had refused to listen to all the defence witnesses and were conspiring against him.
"Having a statute of limitations (ruling) in Milan is a success for Berlusconi," said Piero Longo, a lawyer for the former premier who has long complained that left-wing judges in Milan are out to get him.
Berlusconi had charged ahead of the hearing that the Mills trial "is just one of numerous invented proceedings against me. More than 100 legal procedures, over 900 prosecutors have busied themselves with me."
In particular he criticised the prosecution's "incredible thesis" that the crime was committed not when the money was allegedly given to the lawyer but when the lawyer began spending it two years later.
The prosecution had claimed the trial still had a few months left to run.
"The conviction of an innocent man has been avoided," Fabrizio Cicchitto, head of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) parliamentary group, said after the ruling.
Antonio Di Pietro, former anti-corruption prosecutor and head of the Italy of Values party said: "Once again the statute of limitations saves Berlusconi."
Although a conviction could have been a blow to Berlusconi's prestige, the colourful ex-premier, 75, was never likely to go to jail because sentencing guidelines in Italy are very lenient for over-70s.
Berlusconi has been struggling with the law ever since entering political life in 1993 with his Forza Italia ("Go Italy") party.
His legal woes are far from over with the Mills verdict: he is also currently on trial for sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of power, for tax fraud and for violating official secrets.