Italy's highest court of
appeal, the supreme Court of Cassation, on Thursday night handed
down a term of five years and 10 months in jail to former
Lombardy governor Roberto Formigoni in a corruption case
involving Milan's Maugeri private clinic and the northern city's
San Raffaele Hospital.
The jailing order for the former Berlusconi ally was signed
don Friday morning and Formigoni went to jail at Bollate near
Milan.
However, Formigoni's defence lawyers applied for him to be
granted house arrest - but prosecutors said they would say no to
the request.
Meanwhile centre-right Forza Italia (Fi) leader Silvio
Berlusconi called Formigoni "the best governor of them all".
The prosecutor general had asked for a term of seven and a
half years, the maximum, to be upheld.
"There was an imposing corruptive bartering," said Prosecutor
General Luigi Birritteri.
The maximum term should be upheld, he said, "considering
(Formigoni's) role and the mass of corruption, which leave it
hard to imagine an affair of a similar gravity".
Formigoni has always maintained his innocence.
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