A lawyer for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that he hoped a corruption trial that was frozen in June would resume soon and end in an innocent verdict in time for this year's European elections.
Italy's Constitutional Court on Tuesday annulled a controversial immunity law - which had given the country's top five officials, including the prime minister, immunity from prosecution while in office.
The immediate result of that ruling is that a Milan trial that revolves around accusations that Berlusconi bribed judges to win a favourable ruling in a 1980s corporate take-over will resume in the coming months.
"We want the trial to start soon and be over as soon as possible because we are convinced that the verdict will be in favour of Berlusconi," said lawyer Nicolo Ghedini, who is also a parliamentarian in Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
"We think that it can be concluded in a matter of months, preferably before the European elections," he told reporters. The elections are expected to be held in early June.
The Constitutional Court said the controversial legislation, passed by parliament last June, ran counter to the principle that everyone was equal before the law.
Critics accused the government at the time of drawing up the bill solely for Berlusconi to prevent a potentially damaging verdict falling during Italy's six-month presidency of the European Union, which ended in December.
Berlusconi's allies say he is the victim of a witch-hunt by politically motivated magistrates and assert that the immunity law was similar to legislation in other EU states.
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