Berlusconi attacker unfit to stand trial

The man who hurled a statuette at Silvio Berlusconi, leaving the Italian premier with a broken nose and two broken teeth, is not fit to stand trial, a judge ruled yesterday.

A judge in Milan, Luisa Savoia, placed Massimo Tartaglia under observation for a year in a psychiatric hospital where he has been held since February.

The ruling technically finds Mr Tartaglia not guilty of the attack based on a psychiatric evaluation that found he was not capable of knowingly or intentionally committing a crime at the time the attack took place.