国际英语新闻:Berlusconi says to stay in politics after tax fraud verdict

MILAN, Italy, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday that he felt obliged to remain in politics after being "unjustly" convicted of tax fraud.

Berlusconi, who announced this week that he would not run in Italy's spring elections, told a press conference in one of his residences near Milan that he was not willing to allow anymore what he said to be an "intolerable judicial harassment."

He confirmed that he would not stand for prime minister again, but said he had changed his recent plans to leave politics after "judges in Milan have defined me a person endowed with a natural tendency to criminal acts, which I do not tolerable anymore."

A Milan court on Friday sentenced Berlusconi to four years in jail and banned him from holding public office for five years. The sentence isn't definitive until all appeals are exhausted.

Berlusconi, who has faced a number of trials, said he was being persecuted by left-leaning judges in a country which is being governed by "politicized magistrates."

He said he wanted to "reform the justice system" so that what happened to him will not happen to other citizens.

The 76-year-old media tycoon said his center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party would propose an alternative plan to the austerity one adopted by Prime Minister Mario Monti's technocratic government.

Opposing to policies "dictated by Germany" to other European countries, Berlusconi said his party's program would mainly focus on tax cuts, companies supports, public spending reduction and judicial reform to help families overcome the "desperation and fear" they have plunged into.

In his view, an economy with very solid fundamentals as the Italian one should not have merely followed the path of austerity which triggered a "painful recession" and started a "downward spiral."

Therefore, he will remain the president of his political movement and continue to work actively together with his colleagues "in order to participate in the modernization and change of the country."

The moment has come, Berlusconi said, for his party to decide whether to continue supporting Monti's technocratic cabinet or oppose it, which would lead to earlier elections.

The four-term premier has been wavering about his future since he was forced to resign last November amid a string of sex scandals and his government's inability to reassure international financial markets which put Italy on the edge of a dramatic debt crisis.