Former Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi will not crash the fragile coalition government to protest his tax fraud conviction and four-year prison sentence.

Berlusconi pledged his support for Italy's government government to a gathering of thousands of conservative supporters, but he remained defiant in the face of last week’s supreme court ruling upholding the verdict and sentence, declaring: “I am innocent.”

Some of his supporter had wanted him to pull the right wing PDL party out of government and force an election.  But the three-time ex-prime minister said the current Italian government “must forge ahead” with its economic program.

The 76-year-old is due to serve one year in custody starting from October.

Under Italian law, people over the age of 75 rarely go to prison, and Berlusconi is 76.  It’s more likely he’ll serve some sort of house arrest or given a community sentence.