ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)<br /> <br />STORY: The Italian senate on Wednesday expelled center-right leader Silvio Berlusconi from parliament following his conviction for tax fraud, in what Berlusconi called a day of mourning for Italian democracy.<br /> <br />The senate floor did not hold a formal vote, but merely rejected a series of challenges by Berlusconi's supporters to the recommendation for his expulsion issued last month by a senate panel.<br /> <br />Berlusconi was sentenced in August to four years in prison, commuted to a year under house arrest or in community service, for masterminding an illegal scheme to reduce the tax bill of his media company Mediaset.<br /> <br />Berlusconi, who has dominated politics in Italy for two decades, has already pulled his party out of Letta's coalition after seven months in government, accusing leftwing opponents of mounting a "coup d'etat" to eliminate him.<br /> <br />Stripped of his parliamentary immunity from arrest, he is more vulnerable in a series of other
