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EXPULSION

Berlusconi ‘will have clout even as an ex-MP’

Italy's Silvio Berlusconi will continue to have clout even if he is expelled from parliament as expected on Wednesday, but he is more at risk of being arrested, an expert on Italian politics said.

Berlusconi 'will have clout even as an ex-MP'
Silvio Berlusconi faces a parliamentary vote regarding his expulsion on Wednesday. Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP

"Berlusconi is still extremely powerful, although that power is declining," James Walston, a professor at the American University in Rome, said this week.

"He still has enormous resources, he still has his media, he still has lots of very diehard supporters inside and outside parliament."

But he added Berlusconi would be "liable for arrest".

Walston said Berlusconi was particularly worried about a case in Naples yet to go to trial in which he is accused of bribing a leftist senator to join his party and undermine a previous centre-left government.

"There is a possibility, but it's unlikely, that the Naples judges will actually put him inside," he said.

He added that the same remote chance existed for accusations that Berlusconi paid off young women who took part in raunchy parties at his villa in exchange for favourable testimony at one of his trials.

"The immunity he has as a lawmaker is not complete but it offers safeguards against arrest. He will no longer have that from Wednesday evening," Walston said.

"If he is arrested, there would be mayhem," he said, adding that the move could have the effect of increasing his popularity and earning "sympathy votes".

"I think there are political considerations that the judges will make about the consequences."

Berlusconi is set to be expelled from parliament following his conviction for tax fraud earlier this year under a new law aimed at boosting public support for the legislature by getting rid of criminals.

The three-time former premier would also be banned from being a candidate in the next general election and faces the prospect of a year's community service as part of his punishment, but that is only due to be implemented from early 2014.

Expulsion from the Senate would mean Berlusconi being forced out of parliament for the first time since he was elected in 1994 when the media magnate entered politics.

Berlusconi on Monday appealed to fellow senators not to vote against him, saying that democracy itself was at stake and claiming that new testimony gave sufficient grounds for a judicial review of his tax fraud case.

But Walston said the vote on Wednesday was "highly likely" to go ahead despite delaying tactics by Berlusconi's "diehard" supporters in parliament.

"If the vote goes ahead, then he will be expelled."

Prime Minister Enrico Letta's left-right coalition is expected to survive the vote even after Berlusconi and his loyalists move into opposition to a government in which they are at least formally coalition partners.

Deputy Prime Minister Angelino Alfano, a former Berlusconi protege, broke away from his mentor and has said he and his supporters will stay in the coalition even if Wednesday's vote goes against Berlusconi.

"In the short-term it will strengthen Letta's government but in the medium term it will probably weaken him," Walston said, explaining that divisions in the centre-right and centre-left undermined stability.

"There are problems for the government on all sides."

Walston said Berlusconi had been "careful" in his 20 years in politics about not allowing any potential successors to rise through the ranks, leaving the party "very weak" if and when he leaves the political scene.

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IMMIGRATION

‘Unacceptable for people’: Danish asylum centre slammed in anti-torture report

The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture published on Tuesday a highly critical report on a detention centre in Denmark.

'Unacceptable for people': Danish asylum centre slammed in anti-torture report
File photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

The committee called the centre at Ellebæk in North Zealand “unacceptable for people”.

The Strasbourg-based European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) is the anti-torture committee of the Council of Europe.

The report is based on visits to Ellebæk and other detention centres including Nykøbing Falster Arrest.

Both facilities house migrants who are under arrest based on Denmark’s immigration laws (Udlændingeloven), but not for committing crimes.

In the report on Denmark, which was published on Tuesday, the CPT calls Ellebæk one of the worst facilities of its kind in Europe.

“In our view it is unacceptable to keep people in (prison)-like conditions and furthermore with (poor) sanitary conditions and bad hygiene,” Hans Wolff, the leader of a delegation which visited Ellebæk in April last year, told TV2.

“There are a lot of reasons why Denmark is proud of its human rights (record), but when you come to these places and you find such appalling conditions then one might question either the capability of Denmark to do it better or maybe the will of Denmark to do it in such a bad way,” he added.

“It is not compatible with human rights to keep people under such bad conditions in immigration detention centres,” Wolff also said.

Migrants at the two centres are not suspected or convicted of any crime, the report stresses.

One specific criticism in the report is of only 30 minutes’ daily access to outside exercise provided at Ellebæk.

Another involved punishment for use of mobile telephones.

Meanwhile, the use of restrainment was also criticized as potential abuse.

“The Committee expresses its serious misgivings that the application of the prison rules led to a situation where detained migrants who were found in possession of a mobile phone had to be punished by law with at least 15 days of solitary confinement,” the report states.

“Moreover, due to the lack of rip-proof clothing, detained migrants at risk of suicide were sometimes placed entirely naked in an observation room. The CPT considers that such a practice could amount to degrading treatment,” it also notes.

Ellebæk is used to place rejected asylum seekers who refuse to comply with their deportation. This may be due to their fears of persecution or because no repatriation arrangement exists between Denmark and their home country.

Danish authorities are not obliged to act upon the criticism, but CPT has nevertheless called for conditions to be changed or the migrants to be accommodated elsewhere.

The committee has asked Denmark to provide a response to the recommendations within three months.

Denmark’s immigration law, Udlændingeloven, provides for what is termed as “motivational detention” (“motivationsfremmende frihedsberøvelse”) of rejected asylum seekers in such cases.

“I find such measures [detention, ed.] necessary in relation to ensuring an efficient deportation system,” immigration minister Mattias Tesfaye told the parliamentary immigration committee in a written response last year.

READ ALSO: The middle of nowhere: Inside Denmark's Kærshovedgård deportation camp

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