Berlusconi MP dodges arrest

Nicola Cosentino, deputy from Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, reacts during a vote at the parliament yesterday in Rome

Italian lawmakers rejected yesterday a motion to lift parliamentary immunity for a deputy from Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party under investigation for ties with the Naples mafia.
Prosecutors had sought the arrest of Nicola Cosentino, a former junior finance minister under Berlusconi, saying he had played an “essential” role in helping a mafia-linked shopping mall project obtain bank financing.
Yesterday’s motion saw 309 votes against his arrest and 298 in favour. Allies from Cosentino’s party hugged and shook hands with him after the vote.
“This was the right decision, in line with the constitution,” said Berlusconi, who is himself a defendant in three trials for bribery, tax fraud, abuse of power and having sex with an underage 17-year-old prostitute.
“The trial will go ahead as normal with no obstacles and the member of parliament will face it as a free man as is right,” he said.
The vote was also seen as a test of Berlusconi’s clout in parliament after he was ushered out in November and replaced by an unelected technocratic government following a parliamentary revolt and a wave of market panic.
Leoluca Orlando, a lawmaker from the anti-Berlusconi Italy of Values party, issued a scathing attack on the ex-prime minister’s former coalition partner, the Northern League, which helped Cosentino win the vote.
“The shameful League with its hypocritical call for a free vote has demonstrated once again that it serves Berlusconi and his stablehands” – a reference to a shadowy mobster who once worked on Berlusconi’s estate.
“This parliament has shown it serves corruption and impunity,” he said.