TESSA JOWELL’S husband, who faces a corruption trial in Italy alongside Silvio Berlusconi, has been cut loose by the Italian Prime Minister, who last night accused him of tax avoidance.

Prosecutors in Milan are deciding whether to charge David Mills, a lawyer, and the Italian leader over allegations that he accepted £350,000 from Signor Berlusconi to “protect” the Prime Minister in two trials in 1997 and 1998.

Over the weekend the husband of the UK Culture Secretary said that Italian prosecutors had forced a false confession out of him. After a ten-hour interrogation involving “very, very harsh tactics”, he signed a statement that said he had “protected Berlusconi in various trials and investigations”.

Signor Berlusconi said that he would not provide any help for the British lawyer: “Somebody used my name to cover himself from the tax authorities in his own country and so as not to have to tell the partners of his legal practice exactly what he had pocketed.”

He said that the case against him was “unfounded and absolutely without proof” and was timed to influence the April 9 election.

Mr Mills told The Sunday Telegraph of his desperation at being accused of taking bribes from Signor Berlusconi. Prosecutors want to know why he received £350,000 in October 1999 through Torrey Global, an offshore fund. Mr Mills went to see Italian prosecutors in July 2004, where he says he was forced to sign the statement after they showed him a letter, printed in Italian newspapers this weekend. In the letter to his accountant he admitted receiving money from “the B people”, which he was told to treat as a “long-term loan or gift”. The letter, dated February 2004, said that he had “kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble that I would have landed him in if I had said all I knew”. He had “told no lies but turned some very tricky corners”.

He said that he was told he would receive money, “which I could treat as a long-term loan or a gift. $600,000 was put in a hedge fund and I was told it would be there if I needed it.” In the confession, he is quoted as saying he had tried to protect Signor Berlusconi “as much as I could, and to keep wherever possible a certain discreetness over the operations I had carried out for him”.

He said that the money had been arranged by Carlo Bernasconi, an executive at Fininvest, the parent of Signor Berlusconi’s empire, who died in 2001.

Mr Mills said this weekend: “They were very, very hostile. At the end of ten hours they asked me again, and I simply said, ‘Write something down and I will sign it’. I look at myself in the mirror and I say, ‘You are a complete idiot, but you are not a crook’.”

In November 2004 Mr Mills withdrew the confession. He said that he has demonstrated that he received the money from Diego Attanasio, a Naples shipping magnate, rather than from Signor Berlusconi. Mr Mills said that his letter to his accountant outlined an “imaginary scenario” for tax advice.

Signor Attanasio has denied transferring the money to a Swiss account to which Mr Mills was a signatory. Fabio De Pasquale, one of the prosecutors, said: “Mr Mills’s testimony was given freely. His defence lawyer was present throughout.” Mr Mills spoke fluent Italian, so there was “no question of putting words in his mouth”.

THE ITALIAN CONNECTION

On February 16, Milan magistrates finished their investigation into Signor Berlusconi, Mr Mills and 12 others. Signor Berlusconi’s lawyers now have 20 days to ask for more details to be included in the case or for more questioning. Charges are expected to follow

WHAT HE WROTE

An edited extract of a letter from David Mills to Bob Drennan dated 2 February, 2004:

“In 1996 I ended up with a dividend from Mr B’s companies of around £2.5 million. I kept just under £500,000 of what was then getting on for £2m. So, all that risk and cost for not very much.

I kept in close touch with the B people, and they knew . . . how much the way in which I had been able to give my evidence (I told no lies, but I turned some very tricky corners, to put it mildly) had kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble that I would have landed him in if I had said all I knew.

At around the end of 1999, I was told I would receive money, which I could treat as a long-term loan or a gift. $600,000 was put in a hedge fund and I was told it would be there if I needed it. I regarded the payment as a gift. What else could it be?

Statement to prosecutors in Milan, July 2004:

“I have not said anything false, but I tried to protect him as much as I could and to keep wherever possible a certain discreetness over the operations I had carried out for him. It was in this respect that in autumn 1999, Carlo Bernasconi, who it displeases me to involve in this because I always regarded him as my friend, told me that Silvio Berlusconi, in recognition for the way I had protected him in various trials and investigations, had decided to put a sum of money my way"

In a memorandum to the prosecutors in November 2004 he changed his story, claiming he had been asked to look after the sum on behalf of a client, the shipping magnate Diego Attanasio