BBC News with Jerry Smit

An Italian court has convicted the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of tax evasion and sentenced him to prison. The conviction centered on deals by Mr. Berlusconi’s media corporation to buy American TV shows through illegal

slush funds

. From Rome, Alan Johnston.

Mr Berlusconi said that he had again been hounded by political enemies in the judiciary. He will appeal and the case may well drag on so long that it will

ran out of

time and

expire

. But even by the standards of Mr. Berlusconi’s extraordinarily colorful story, the outcome of this case has been a striking development. This time last year he was running this country from the prime minister’s office. And now a judge has ruled that he should actually be behind bars.

Prosecutors in China have formally opened a criminal investigation into the disgraced politician Bo Xilai. Earlier in the day, he was expelled from the National People’s Congress. Ben Campbell reports.

Bo Xilai was a

high-flyer

in the Communist Party. He was in charge of the southern city of Chongqing, but his career came crashing down following the murder of a British businessman Neil Heywood. Mr. Bo’s wife Gu Kailai and his former police chief have been jailed over the killing. Mr. Bo was expelled from the Communist Party last month. Earlier on Friday, he was thrown out of China’s top lawmaking body and lost his