Berlusconi: “Psychiatric assessment? Enough now, let’s go to trial”
Silvio Berlusconi asks that the trial against him in Milan continue even in his absence: he wrote this in a letter to the president of the Court, after the request for a psychiatric evaluation of him.
A hypothesis, the former prime minister states, "damaging to my history and my honorability". For this reason, he adds, "let us proceed, therefore, in my absence to the celebration of a trial that should not even have begun, in the knowledge that, even if this were to happen later, the absolute correctness of my behavior will be recognized and I will be acquitted of all charges. I therefore express my full consent that the trial be held in my absence".
In the letter to the president of the court, Berlusconi explains: “I learned that during the last hearing held on September 15, 2021, the panel presided over by you decided to order an expert assessment of me to establish whether I am actually unable to participate in the trial. The decision appears surprising for several reasons.”
The former prime minister cites "the medical reports filed", recalls that "the same public prosecutor's office on 19 and 28 May 2021 requested the cancellation of my position, sharing the validity of the medical reasons".
Yet, he adds, "that same prosecutor during the hearing of September 8, with tones and ways that were truly unacceptable towards me and the doctors who have examined me many times, asked to disregard the same conclusions and proceed further. But the decision to submit me to not only a medical-legal and cardiological assessment, but also a psychiatric one appears to be beyond all logic and completely incongruous with respect to my history and my present".
For Berlusconi "the hypothesis of subjecting me to a broad and unlimited psychiatric assessment by the court demonstrates, given what I have done in life in many sectors including business, sport and politics, an evident and incredible distortion of reality in the context of this unjust trial".
Article published on 16 September 2021 - 17:48