Some charges against former Italian PM dropped: sources

An Italian judge has thrown out some charges against former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and British lawyer David Mills in a corporate fraud case because of the statute of limitations, court sources said yesterday.

The decision in the case, which concerns suspected crimes at Berlusconi's Mediaset, Italy's largest private broadcaster, is the latest victory in his many legal battles since he entered politics in 1994.

Milan judge Edoardo D'Avossa yesterday decided not to press charges of embezzlement before July 1999 as well as charges of fraud and false accounting before 1998 for Berlusconi in the case, the sources said.