ROME — A court in Milan threw out the bribery case against former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday, saying that the statute of limitations had expired and continuing his long run of seeming invulnerability to conviction.

Mr. Berlusconi, who had denied wrongdoing, had been accused of bribing a British tax lawyer to withhold testimony to protect him. In the trial, which began in March 2007, his lawyers maintained Mr. Berlusconi’s innocence even while pressing the statute-of-limitations argument.

On Saturday, a member of Mr. Berlusconi’s legal team, Piersilvio Cipollotti, called the decision a “most positive solution, given the circumstances.” Mr. Berlusconi and his lawyers have maintained that the court was pressing to convict and jail him at all costs, calling multiple hearings even though they knew the statute of limitations could come into play.

“Had those calculations been carried out earlier, the Italian justice system would have saved hundreds of thousands of euros,” Mr. Cipollotti said. “We almost feared that they would have condemned him after all the new hearings, once a week for months.”