‘Will the present inquiry by the Cabinet Secretary examine whether or not the Home Office acted improperly in relation to an extradition request for Mr Mills?’ Tory MP Richard Bacon asked Prime Minister Blair yesterday.
The MP was referring to documents from the Italian prosecutor’s office in Milan, which accuse the British Home Office of alerting the Italian Justice Ministry via the Italian embassy in London, and through that Prime Minister Berlusconi, that Italian prosecutors were seeking the extradition of international lawyer Mills, the husband of UK Culture Secretary Jowell.
Blair replied at prime minister’s question time in the House of Commons: ‘We will of course examine any allegations that are made and reply to them fully.’
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is already being investigated by Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell over whether she breached the Ministerial Code over monies used to pay off a joint mortgage within two weeks, which were alleged to have been a bribe from Berlusconi to Mills, who had been representing Berlusconi in a corruption case.
Meanwhile, Blair’s official spokesman has said the culture secretary ‘has the prime minister’s full support’.
The Milan prosecutor’s office documents include those concerning the $600,000 allegedly passed from Berlusconi to Mills as a bribe for ‘being helpful’.
The most recently discovered documents are letters from the prosecutors to the UK Home Office, complaining that ‘the involvement of the Italian embassy in London is unusual and incomprehensible’.
One letter added that ‘it is to be deplored that the sending of extremely sensitive information should have occurred without any precaution to guarantee its confidentiality’.
Both Jowell and Mills have denied the money came from Berlusconi, although Mills did on two occasions confess that it did.
He has since retracted his admissions, saying that on one occasion he had a confession extracted under duress by Italian police.
On a separate occasion, Mills says that remarks in a letter to his solicitor were merely sounding out a hypothetical tax relief scenario.
Jowell also says she has committed no wrongdoing.
She insists it was not ‘unusual, improper or illegal’ for her to take out a mortgage with her husband, and categorically denied that the money came from Berlusconi.