**UK tax lawyer David Mills could learn on Thursday whether his conviction for bribery is to be upheld in Italy.**Mills was convicted of taking a $600,000 bribe from Silvio Berlusconi in 1997 for giving false evidence at one of the Italian PM’s trials.
Mills, the estranged husband of UK minister Tessa Jowell, had a previous appeal against the conviction rejected.
He faces a four-and-a-half-year jail sentence if Italy’s highest court confirms his guilt.
The sentence was upheld in October by a Milan appeals court, but Mills then lodged a second appeal with the Cassation Court, which will have the final say on the case when it rules on Thursday.
Parallel trial
Mr Mills, who separated from former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell in 2006, was one of Mr Berlusconi’s consultants on offshore tax havens.
In his trial, the prosecution alleged Mr Berlusconi had paid Mills for not revealing details of offshore companies during two previous trials in 1997 and 1998, in which the lawyer had appeared as an expert witness.
The charges stemmed from a letter Mills sent to a British accountant in 2004, in which he said the £400,000 payment had come from “Mr B”.
Mr Mills initially admitted having received money from Mr Berlusconi “in recognition” of the evidence he had given, but later said the money had come from Italian shipping magnate Diego Attanasio.
Mr Berlusconi is charged with corrupting Mills, in a parallel trial, the fate of which hangs on Thursday’s appeal ruling.
Should the Cassation Court confirm the sentence against Mills, it would strengthen the hand of prosecutors in the case against the prime minister.
Both men deny the charges.