On August 1, 2013, Italy’s highest criminal court announced a verdict that ended Silvio Berlusconi’s long run of escaping final judgment. He had been convicted before, but, as CBS News put it at the time, those convictions “have always either been overturned on appeal or seen the statute of limitations run out.” This one stuck. Thirteen years later, the question of whether that trial was fair was still being argued in Strasbourg.
From property to broadcasting
Berlusconi was born in Milan in 1936 to a middle-class family, the Guardian reported in its obituary. He started in property development and went on to found Mediaset, Italy’s largest commercial broadcaster. He owned AC Milan from 1986 until 2017, then bought Monza and took the club from Italy’s second division to the top flight. Italians called him Il Cavaliere, the knight, an honour that stuck as a nickname.
Three governments
Forza Italia was founded in 1994, and Berlusconi became the first prime minister to be elected without having held government office. He led three governments between 1994 and 2011. His second term, from 2001 to 2006, was the longest of any Italian leader since the Second World War. He came back in 2008 and had to resign in 2011, as the country sank into a debt crisis and he faced allegations that he hosted “bunga bunga” sex parties with underage girls. He denied it. He was acquitted on appeal of all charges tied to the parties.
His business interests followed him into office. Courthouse News noted that he left formal corporate roles in 1994 but kept his holdings, which fed accusations that he used public office to protect his private empire.
The tax case
Prosecutors alleged that Berlusconi and other defendants bought broadcast rights to US films for his networks, then inflated the price as the rights were relicensed internally, pocketing the difference, which CBS put at around euro250 million across some 3,000 films. Berlusconi denied the charges and called himself the victim of politically motivated prosecutors.
A lower court convicted him in October 2012. In May 2013, a Milan appeals court upheld the four-year sentence and a five-year ban from public office. The Court of Cassation closed the case that August. Italian courts found that intermediaries sold the television rights to Mediaset at inflated prices, creating fictitious costs that cut its taxes, and that Berlusconi devised the scheme and stayed involved after leaving his corporate posts. A remission cut his four-year sentence to one, and he served it as part-time community service at a residential home in Milan. The conviction cost him his Senate seat in 2013.
Comeback and death
The ban on running for office was lifted in time for the 2018 general elections. In 2019 he won a seat in the European Parliament. In October 2022 his party returned to government as a junior partner in a coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, and voters sent him back to the Senate.
He died aged 86 at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan on June 12, 2023, after treatment for a lung infection linked to chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia. Meloni called him “above all a fighter.” Matteo Renzi, another former prime minister, said: “Many loved him, many hated him.” He left five children.
Strasbourg, October 2026
His heirs kept the legal fight going. On Thursday, October 22, 2026, the European Court of Human Rights rejected the challenge continued by his five children, who argued that Italy’s top criminal court was biased. The judges found no violation of his right to an impartial court and declared the other complaints inadmissible. They said a newspaper interview by the presiding judge, Antonio Esposito, given after the verdict but before the written reasons appeared, did not show he had prejudged guilt. The conviction stands. Either side has three months to ask for the impartiality complaint to be reconsidered by the Grand Chamber.
Sources
- Europe’s rights court rejects bias claims over former Italian premier’s tax fraud conviction | Courthouse News Service
- Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to 4 years in prison after tax fraud verdict upheld – CBS News
- Silvio Berlusconi, scandal-ridden former Italian prime minister, dies aged 86 – The Guardian
