Strasbourg, 20/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Lord Russell-Johnston, will inform plenary, meeting in Strasbourg, of the request for the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of Silvio Berlusconi, request referred to him by the Spanish authorities. This request will, in compliance with the rules of procedure, be automatically forwarded to the Assembly's Committee on the Rules of Procedure which will discuss it at its meeting of 25 April to which Mr. Berlusconi will be invited to be heard. This is the first time since 1968 that such a request has been addressed to the Parliamentary Assembly.
As in the delicate case of the request sent to the European Parliament, regarding Berlusconi (and Mr. Dell'Utri), the lifting of the immunity has been requested by Judge Baltasar Garzon and the Spanish Supreme Court, in the context of an affair of tax fraud concerning the television station Telecinco that in part belongs to the group of the Italian communications magnate. However, contrary to what happened in the case of the European Parliament, where the case was handed over directly to the Supreme Tribunal of the EP's Bureau in Madrid, on 17 July 2000, the request addressed, on 23 March 2001 by the President of the Supreme Court to the Parliamentary Assembly was forwarded, on 9 April, by Spain's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe. In addition, in the framework of decisions taken by the Conference of Presidents of the political groups of the EP (see EUROPE of 6 April, p.4), following the political stir caused by the fact that this affair had not been forwarded for examination to the relevant Committee of the EP, President Nicole Fontaine has decided to appoint the French non-aligned member Marie-France Garaud to undertake a fact-finding mission in Spain.