BERLUSCONI SAYS CAN'T ATTEND FIRST TRIAL HEARING

BERLUSCONI SAYS CAN'T ATTEND FIRST TRIAL HEARING

(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi cannot attend the first hearing of a trial in which his TV group Mediaset is accused of false accounting in selling film rights, his lawyers said Tuesday.

The premier has to be in Rome that day, November 16, for a world summit on food security, they said.

They said the premier was prepared to attend every hearing in the trial as long as they are scheduled to let him do his job as premier.

The trial is one of two involving the premier which were reactivated when the Constitutional Court recently struck down an immunity law passed by the Berlusconi government last year.

The second involves the alleged bribery of British corporate lawyer David Mills to hush up incriminating evidence in two earlier trials.

The first Mills trial hearing is on November 27.

Berlusconi has not yet said whether he can be in court for that.