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Italy PM Silvio Berlusconi - Source: Reuters
The setting was surely a signal that the court meant business.
Along the walls of the largely marble and cavernous courtroom were a series cages draped in cloth. An Italian reporter whispered to me that these cages were built to protect witnesses in Mafia trials and that they were covered in cloth so the world's media wouldn't see them.
I immediately thought would the highest ranking politician in Italy have to give his evidence or hear the charges read out against him sitting in a cage?
I needn't have thought for long on that because as the three female judges came in and uttered a few things in barely audible Italian followed by brief comments from a series of lawyers - the most highly anticipated court hearing in Italy for years (and remember 74-year-old Silvio can lay claim to many starring roles in legal proceedings) was over.
Seven minutes most of us agreed was the time. Some argued a few minutes more.
Mr Berlusconi had more important things to do than appear in court. Libya was his priority and perhaps one of the few issues that could be seen as more disturbing than his own behaviour alleged to have occurred at his silicon laden "bunga bunga" parties.
Mr Berlusconi is charged with paying for sex with an underage prostitute - a belly dancer from Morocco and then using his prime ministerial power to call in a favour with the police and try and get her off a theft charge.
As reporters inside the court rushed the lawyers for comment, outside, the Prime Minister's cheer team made up mainly of elderly blinkered types continued to shout "Silvio Silvio" and even broke into song.
Earlier I saw busloads of police ready themselves with riot shields and helmets but this would not be a day where even simmering emotions would get a chance to boil over - even if the early spring temperatures in Milan are hitting the mid twenties.
Anti Berlusconi protesters were kept across the road. Both camps were deprived of the presence of the man they had so patiently gathered to see.
A political writer for a large daily newspaper told me he is embarrassed. The whole sordid affair he believes is a circus and he feels the Italian people are cast as the clowns.
Eighteen years he says, the same man, same judges, same problems, same accusations. He tells me rather disconsolately that - Italy is stuck while the world moves on.
The trial is now adjourned until the end of May.
Many people just want the truth from their leader, but the irony is, he may have been voted out of office by the time this trial reaches an end.
Read more Paul Hobbs opinion.
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