The black secrets of mafia man called Berlusconi 1/4General investigation in Berlusconi life

1936. Born in Milan on September 29, the eldest of the three children (two boys and a girl) of Luigi Berlusconi, employee of the Banca Rasini, and Rosa Bossi, housewife.

1954. Graduates from the Salesian classical secondary school Copernico and enrolls

in the Law School of the State University of Milan. In his spare time, he works as a

door-to-door electric brush salesman and as a wedding and funeral photographer, plays the contrabass and sings (even on cruise ships) in the band of his childhood friend, Fedele Confalonieri.

1957. First steady job in with the building firm, Immobiliare costruzioni.

1961. Graduates law school in Milan with the maximum score of 110 cum laude, writing a thesis on the legal aspects of advertising contracts. He wins a two-million lire scholarship offered by the Manzoni firm. He does not serve in the military for reasons unknown. He goes into real estate, purchasing a piece of land in Via Alciati thanks of the guarantees given him by banker Carlo Rasini, who obtains a partner for him, the builder Pietro Canali. The firm Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi is founded.

1963. Founds Edilnord Sas in limited partnership with Carlo Rasini and Swiss accountant Carlo Rezzonico (of the mysterious Lugano investing firm, Finanzierungesellshaft für Residenzen Ag).

In 1964 he opens a construction site in Brugherio to build a model-city for 4000 people. The first condominium building is finished in 1965, but he does not manage to sell one apartment. Then - no one knows how - he manages to sell one to the Fondo di previdenza dei dirigenti commerciali [Business Managers' Social Insurance Fund].

1965. Marries Carla Elvira Dall'Oglio, Genoese, with whom he has two children --

Maria Elvira (1966) and Piersilvio (1969).

1968. Edilnord 2 is founded with a purchase of land from the city of Segrate, where

Milano 2 will rise.

1969. Brugherio is completed with 1000 apartments sold Marco Travaglio and Peter Gomez – Berlusconi – 2/July/2003.

1973. Founds Italcantieri Srl with the help of two mysterious Ticino investment firms

-- Cofigen (linked with financier Tito Tettamanti) and Eti AG Holding (managed by financier Ercole Doninelli).

He purchases the Villa Casati Stampa with all its adjacent land at Arcore, thanks to the good offices of his friend Cesare Previti. In fact, Preveti, besides being his friend and business associate, was at the same time the court-appointed guardian of the only

Casati Stampa family heiress, the twelve-year-old countess Annamaria

1974. The real estate firm Immobiliare San Martino is founded with the help of two

BNL Bank trust firms, Servizio Italia and Saf under the management of Marcello

Dell'Utri, an ex-university friend from Palermo. Telemilano 58, a cable television

station, is set up in a Milano 2 building. Shortly after, it is broadcast on the air as

Canale 5. Berlusconi and his family move into Villa Casati, where he is joined by

Mafia capo Vittorio Mangano, hired by Dell'Utri in Sicily as "overseer" - i.e. house and estate manager. Mangano is to leave Arcore only a year and a half later in the wake of two arrests and an investigation of him for the kidnapping of a guest at the villa who was a friend of Berlusconi's.

1975. The firms Servizio Italia and Saf create Fininvest. Edilnord and Milano 2 are founded. However, Berlusconi's name never appears. It is buried and screened off in a maze of front-people and stand-ins from 1968, when he becomes president of Italcantieri to 1979 when he becomes president of Fininvest.

1977. Right after he is given the title, "Knight of Labor," he purchases a share in the publisher of the newspaper, Il Giornale, founded in 1974 by Indro Montanelli.

1978-1983 Receives the equivalent of about 500 billion lire at today's values, about

15 billion of it in cash to fund the 24 (then the 37) Italian holding companies that make up Fininvest. The funding sources are still unknown. These are the years of the rise to power and then to government of Bettino Craxi, secretary of the PSI [Socialist

Party].

1978. He joins Propaganda 2 (P2), a secretive runaway Masonic lodge presided over by "Venerable Master" Licio Gelli, whom he was introduced to by journalist Roberto

Gervaso. He holds membership card number 1816. From this time on he begins to be granted credit beyond normal limits by the Monte dei Paschi and the BNL (two banks whose key people were associated with P2). He begins to contribute his comments on economic policy to the Corriere della Sera, a newspaper controlled by the P2 through Angelo Rizzoli and Bruno Tassan Din. The P2 is dissolved as a "subversive" group by an executive order of the Spadolini government.

1980. Berlusconi founds Publitalia 80 with Marcello dell'Utri,  an advertising clearinghouse for TV stations. He meets the actress Veronica Lario (the stage name of Miriam Bartolini) who was acting in burlesque show at Milan's Teatro Manzoni. He falls in love and hides her for three years in a secret wing of the Fininvest headquarters in Via Rovani in Milan. When she becomes pregnant in 1984, she gives birth in utmost secrecy to a girl, Barbara, in Switzerland. Berlusconi recognizes his daughter legally. Bettino Craxi becomes the godfather at her baptism.

1981. The Milan public prosecutors Gherardo Colombo and Giuliano Turone discover

the lists of P2 lodge members while they are investigating the dealings of Michele

Sindona  the bankrupt Mafia and P2 member. However, Berlusconi does not suffer from the fallout of the scandal that sweeps through the government, the army, the secret services, and the world of journalism.

1982. Berlusconi purchases the television station Italia 1 from the publisher, Edilio

Rusconi.

1984. Berlusconi purchases the television station Rete 4 from the publisher, Mondadori. By now he is the owner of three national television networks and can compete with RAI [the public network] directly. However, three judges - from Turin,

Pescara, and Rome - confiscate the equipment that enables the programs to be broadcast in "inter-connection" - that is, simultaneously nationwide. Craxi issues an urgent executive order (the first "Berlusconi decree") to legalize the illegal situation, but the order never becomes law because it is held unconstitutional. Craxi issues another executive order (the second "Berlusconi decree") and threatens the parties in his alliance to call for early elections if the order is rejected. In February, 1985, the order become law after the Craxi government bound it to a vote of no confidence.

1985. Berlusconi divorces Carla Dell'Oglio and makes his union with Veronica official. They have two other children -- Eleonora (1986) and Luigi (1988). His second marriage is presided over in a civil ceremony by Paolo Pillitteri, the Socialist mayor of Milan and brother-in-law of Craxi. The wedding witnesses are Bettino and Anna Craxi, Confalonieri and Gianni Letta.

1986. Berlusconi purchases the football club Milan Calcio and becomes its president. (In 1988 Milan wins its first championship)

Meanwhile, his French television station La Cinq falls through. It is to close for good in 1990. Jacques Chirac is to be the person who chases him out of France, calling him a "broth salesman."

1988. The De Mita government issues the "Mammì law" concerning the radio and television system. The law, in effect, endorses the dual-monopoly of the RAI-

Fininvest networks and fails to impose any genuine antitrust ceiling on Berlusconi.

The law is passed in 1990.He purchases Standa, a supermarket chain.

1989-1991. Long battle between Berlusconi and De Benedetti over the control of

Mondadori, the first publisher to control newspapers (La Repubblica and13 local

newspapers) weeklies (Panorama, Espresso, and Epoca) and virtually the entire book trade. A sentence issued by Judge Vittorio Metta allows Berlusconi to wrest control of

Mondadori from his rival. A court in Milan will later hold that this sentence was bought through bribes given by the attorney, Previti, on Berlusconi's behalf.

Subsequent political negotiations lead to the return, at least, of La Repubblica, Espresso and the local newspapers to De Benedetti. All the rest is to remain with

Berlusconi.

1990. Parliament passes the controversial "Mammì law." Accordingly, Berlusconi is allowed to keep his television networks and Mondadori. (In the meantime, he enters the pay-TV business with the station Telepiù.) He just had to "divest" himself of the newspaper Il Giornale, which he hands over to his brother Paolo in 1990.

1994. Berlusconi is left orphaned by political parties friendly to him, which are swept away in the

Tangentopoli ["Bribe-opolis"] scandals. He enters politics in person, founds the Forza

Italia ["Let's Go, Italy"] party, wins the March 27 political elections at the head of the

Polo delle Libertà ["Freedom Alliance"], and becomes Prime Minister. On November

21 he is implicated in an investigation about bribes given to the members of the

Guardia di Finanza [the treasury police]. On December22 he is forced to resign on a vote of no-confidence introduced by the Lega Nord party [the "Northern League"], which no longer support his social policies and press for a resolution of his conflict- of-interest problems.

1996. Berlusconi is investigated for Mafia associations, illegal accounting practices, fiscal fraud, and - above all - for bribing judges along with Preveti. At the same time, he runs again in the political elections but loses. Romano Prodi, the candidate of the center-left Ulivo ["Olive-Tree Alliance"], wins. Berlusconi spends 5 years in the opposition, but is involved in a series of judicial investigations and trials, which end in several guilty verdicts in the first trials. However, the verdicts are suspended and - rarely -- reversed in appeals courts and in the Cassazione court [the supreme court of appeals].

2001. On May 15 he wins the elections at the head of the Casa delle Libertà

["Freedom House"] party alliance and is re-installed as Prime Minister.