24, December 2016
Perpetrator of Berlin attack shot dead in Italy 0
A man believed to be the perpetrator of a Monday terrorist attack in the German city of Berlin has been killed in Italy. Italy’s interior minister confirmed that Anis Amri, wanted in the Berlin attack, was killed in a shootout with police in the northern Italian city of Milan on Friday. Minister Marco Minniti said that all the necessary checks were conducted after the shootout and that “the person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the [Berlin] terrorist attack.”Minniti said, however, that investigations were still in progress and that there could be “future developments.” A short video posted on the website of Italian magazine Panorama suggested that the shooting happened before dawn, with police gathered around a cordoned-off area in the dark.
Amri was the main suspect in an attack on a busy Berlin Christmas market on Monday. He allegedly ran a 40-ton truck into a crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others. Shortly before the shootout in Italy, police in Denmark had said that a man matching his description had been seen in Aalborg in northern Denmark. Danish police said people had to keep away from the area as a security operation had been launched there.
German investigators had said they believed Amri was still laying low in Berlin because he was probably wounded, Der Tagesspiegel reported citing security sources. In the early hours of Friday, German special forces also arrested two men suspected of planning an attack on a shopping mall in the city of OberhausenIn in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, police said in a statement. A police spokesman said there was no connection between the Duisburg arrests and the Amri case.
Presstv
29, January 2017
Italy: Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces new trial 0
A court in Italy has ordered a new trial for three-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi on corruption charges, creating a new obstacle to his bid to return to office. Milan Judge Carlo Ottone De Marchi scheduled the new trial for Berlusconi on April 5, local media reported on Saturday.
The 80-year-old former Italian statesman allegedly paid as much as 10 million euros and gave expensive gifts to young women to “buy” their silence in various other court cases involving him. The new trial is now aimed at determining whether the payments amounted to hush money and interfered in the other judicial proceedings.
Berlusconi has denied any wronging. One of his lawyers, Federico Cecconi, has said the new prosecution is “the first trial for the crime of generosity.” Berlusconi is the leader of Italy’s center-right Forza Italia Party, currently the opposition party in the parliament.
Last year, Berlusconi was tried for a sexual relationship with an underage teenager when he was premier and then using his influence to cover it up. While he was acquitted in that case, several other complaints of sexual misconduct have been filed against him, in addition to the accusations of financial corruption.
A 2013 tax fraud conviction forced him out of his Senate seat and barred him from holding public office for the next few years. Berlusconi has challenged the ban, taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights. Berlusconi eyes participating in Italy’s national elections, due in 2018, but his hopes for running for office may be dashed with the newly-scheduled trial.
Presstv