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Call to prosecute British Minister's spouse

Almost every British newspaper carried fresh revelations over the weekend about his controversial career as a corporate lawyer and tax specialist.

Rome/London: Prosecutors in Milan are expected to ask a judge to put the husband of British Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell on trial on a corruption charge alongside Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister.

David Mills, who is already facing money laundering and tax evasion charges, left the couple's home in north London shortly after his lawyer announced their separation on Saturday, and is understood to have flown to Florida to visit his son.

He has left a series of new and embarrassing allegations in his wake. Almost every British newspaper carried fresh revelations over the weekend about his controversial career as a corporate lawyer and tax specialist.

The London-based Guardian disclosed on Saturday that he formed a company whose directors included a man who was the key intermediary between Mr Berlusconi's corporate empire and the mafia.

Sunday's batch of allegations included the revelation that Mr Mills made a £68,000 profit from buying shares in a pub chain at a time when Ms Jowell was involved in a review of licensing laws and was considering whether to ban smoking from pubs; allegations that he was condemned, in a briefing paper prepared by the Serious Fraud Office as a ``hypocrite'' who had made ``false statements"; and claims that he had made use of his wife's status as a Minister when responding to a Revenue & Customs investigation into his tax affairs. Mr Mills denies all the charges he faces in Italy and any wrongdoing in his tax affairs and any other business dealings.

He used a corporation based in the British Virgin Islands to purchase 91,000 shares in the Old Monk Company, a pub chain, for £80,000, according to an analysis of his affairs by KPMG, the accountancy firm, for prosecutors in Milan. In August of the following year, when he arranged their sale, they were worth £148,000.

In the meantime, Ms Jowell, then Public Health Minister, had played a major role in the decision not to outlaw smoking in pubs and other public places. This decision, announced in December 1998, was condemned by the British Medical Association.

There is no evidence that Ms Jowell was aware of this investment or was influenced by her husband's shareholdings.

However, opposition MPs say that this is yet another aspect of Mr Mills' business dealings about which she should have been aware, and that Ms Jowell should have declared it to her permanent secretary at the Department of Health.

Another leak from the Italian investigation contained allegations that the SFO was concerned at the difficulties it had encountered in attempting to recover documents on behalf of the prosecutors in Milan. Some were alleged to have been shipped to Malta, while others were said to have been ``sent to the Isle of Man and have never been retrieved''. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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