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WATCH: Berlusconi Infuriated At Prison Sentence

ANSA, TGCOM24 (Italy)

Worldcrunch

ROME – Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi broadcasted an angry video late Thursday, after a high court upheld his four-year prison sentence in a tax fraud case.

The center-right leader strongly denounced the jail ruling, claiming his innocence and accusing the Italian Justice of persecuting him. "No-one can understand the true violence that I've been the victim of through a series of charges and trials that had no basis in reality," he argued in the nine-minute video.

Because of his age, the 76-year-old politician is unlikely to serve his time behind bars, but rather under house arrest. It is however the first definitive sentence Berlusconi has received after a long series of trials on charges ranging from abuse of office, sex offences, bribery, tax fraud and tax evasion.

Video: TGCOM24


Here are some selected extracts from Berlusconi's speech:

"Today's sentence confirmed my belief that a part of the judicial authorities has become irresponsible"

"I have never been anyone's silent partner, I have never devised any system of fiscal fraud, there have never been false invoices in the history of mediaset, just like there are no hidden funds abroad that are linked to me or my family."

"In exchange for the commitments I have made for my country over almost 20 years and now as I am coming to the end of my public life, I have been rewarded with accusations and a verdict that is founded on absolutely nothing, that takes away my personal freedom and my political rights."

"Is this the Italy that we want? Is this the Italy that we love? Absolutely not."

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Society

Big Brother For The People: India's CCTV Strategy For Cracking Down On Police Abuse

"There is nothing fashionable about installing so many cameras in and outside one’s house," says a lawyer from a Muslim community. And yet, doing this has helped members of the community prove unfair police action against them.

A woman is walking in the distance while a person holds a military-style gun close up

Survellance and tight security at the Lal Chowk area in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India on October 4, 2022

Sukanya Shantha

MUMBAI — When sleuths of the National Investigating Agency suddenly descended on human rights defender and school teacher Abdul Wahid Shaikh’s house on October 11, he knew exactly what he needed to do next.

He had been monitoring the three CCTVs that are installed on the front and the rear of his house — a chawl in Vikhroli, a densely populated area in suburban Mumbai. The cameras told him that a group of men and women — some dressed in Mumbai police’s uniform and a few in civil clothes — had converged outside his house. Some of them were armed and few others with batons were aggressively banging at the door asking him to immediately let them in.

This was not the first time that the police had landed at his place at 5 am.

When the policemen discovered the CCTV cameras outside his house, they began hitting it with their batons, destroying one of them mounted right over the door. This action was captured by the adjacent CCTV camera. Shaikh, holed up in his house with his wife and two children, kept pleading with the police to stop destroying his property and simply show them an official notice.

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