A Special Senate Committee voted to strip Silvio Berlusconi of his Parliament Seat

A special Senate committee in Italy on 4 October 2013 voted to strip Silvio Berlusconi of his Parliament seat after he was convicted for tax fraud. The panel's decision will need to be confirmed with a full vote of the Senate in the coming weeks. But it is being interpreted as a further sign of the end of the political career of the centre-right leader and media tycoon, who has dominated Italy's politics for almost 20 years.

On 1 August 2013, Berlusconi was convicted of a tax fraud by the Italian Supreme Court and sentenced to four years of prison, automatically reduced to one year under a 2006 pardon act.

He was also banned from holding public office. After dozens of trials in almost 20 years of political career, it was the first definitive conviction and made him formally ineligible for parliament under a 2012 anti-corruption law.

Berlusconi is the former Prime minister of Italy. He served four times as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011.