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Italy braces for Berlusconi's sex trial
Topic Started: Apr 3 2011, 11:13 AM (1,296 Views)
shure
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Italy braces for Berlusconi's sex trial
April 3, 2011 - 12:16PM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/italy-braces-for-berlusconis-sex-trial-20110403-1cswu.html

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Silvio Berlusconi . . . television crews have been banned from his trial. Photo: AFP


As Italy's Silvio Berlusconi prepares for the first hearing in his sex crime trial this week, a voracious media is being kept at bay over fears the prime minister's popularity may take yet another blow.

Television crews have been banned from entering the Milan court house on Wednesday as the 74-year-old premier faces allegations of paying for sex last year with a then 17-year-old starlet known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer".

The case has been hotly followed by national and international media ever since Italian magistrates opened an inquiry into Berlusconi's relationship with the Moroccan teenager Ruby - real name Karima El Mahroug - in January.

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Berlusconi's popularity has been hit in recent months by rumours of orgies as well as a slew of corruption and fraud trials, and his ratings dropped to a new record low of 33 per cent in March as he struggled to retain credibility.

"Ruby" is one of several girls alleged to have attended raunchy parties thrown by the prime minister in his private residence near Milan, where he is said to have showered them with money and hand-picked some of them to spend the night.

The premier is also accused of using his status to spring Ruby out of police custody when she was detained for theft, although he claims she had told him she was the Egyptian president's niece and he acted to avoid diplomatic fallout.

"We will be bombarded day-in day-out with details in the media. I have my doubts whether Berlusconi will be able to control the situation," Franco Pavoncello, political analyst at the John Cabot University in Rome, told AFP.

Even though the premier is "very unlikely" to attend this first hearing, according to one of his defence lawyers, rumours that Hollywood star George Clooney may be called as a witness ensure the intense media coverage continues.

The 33 women named by the prosecution as having taken part in masked orgies and erotic dances with Berlusconi are also expected to be called to testify, although "Ruby" is also unlikely to be at the first hearing, the lawyer said.

"Once you have witnesses taking the stand it can become very problematic. It's one thing to read sordid rumours in the papers, it's quite another to have ladies in front of a judge revealing embarrassing details," Pavoncello said.

The underage sex charge carries a maximum sentence of three years, while the abuse of power accusation is punishable by up to 12 years in prison, but Berlusconi has laughed off the charges, which he describes as "absurd".

"I'm 75 years old and even if I am naughty... 33 women in two months to me seems a bit too much," he joked in March.

Thousands of women took to the streets in Italy to protest against the playboy billionaire when the scandal first broke, and rejoiced when it transpired the ageing Latin lover would be judged by a panel of three women.

Ruby has denied having sex with Berlusconi and his defence lawyers have submitted a list of witnesses they hope will testify in the premier's defence, including Clooney and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.

The voluptuous dark-haired dancer has claimed Clooney was among those who attended parties at Berlusconi's villa at Arcore and told investigating judges Real Madrid player Ronaldo paid her 4,000 euros ($A5,502) in cash for sexual services.

Clooney's girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis also features on the list of 78 witnesses the premier's legal team would like to call in Berlusconi's defence, as well as Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna, who worked for several years on Italian television shows and as a model, coming sixth in the 1997 Miss Italy contest before entering politics in 2004, is also on the list.

Legal sources have suggested Wednesday's hearing is likely to be limited to fixing dates for future sessions.

As Berlusconi has said he will keep Mondays free to attend court, the defence could ask for the next hearing be held on June 6, the lawyer said.

The "Rubygate" case brings the number of trials currently involving Berlusconi to three, with the other two involving his business activities.

The beleaguered prime minister attended a legal hearing for the first time in eight years at the end of March, over allegations of fiscal fraud and breach of trust involving one of his companies, which could open up a fourth trial.







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Silvio Berlusconi's women were 'parcels' delivered to prime minister
By Nick Squires, Rome5:19PM BST 01 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/8421813/Silvio-Berlusconis-women-were-parcels-delivered-to-prime-minister.html

Silvio Berlusconi's girls were described as "parcels" to be delivered to the prime minister, according to fresh evidence which has emerged just days before he is due to go on trial.

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Lampedusa earlier this week Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES


Mr Berlusconi has been accused of abuse of office and paying for sex with an under age prostitute. His trial, which is due to start in Milan on Wednesday, will involve lurid claims of young women being paid to perform pole dances and striptease acts at the prime minister's mansion outside the city.

He is not obliged under Italian law to turn up for the start of the trial in Milan on Wednesday and is not expected to make an appearance, despite the fact that the charges against him together carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

The one-day hearing is expected to be largely devoted to establishing a timetable for the trial – Mr Berlusconi, who denies all the charges, has said that it is only convenient for him to attend hearings on Mondays.

He is accused of paying for sex on a dozen occasions last year with Karima El Mahroug, a Moroccan-born erotic dancer also known by her stage name of Ruby the Heart Stealer, when she was 17 – a year below the legal age of prostitution in Italy.

Prosecutors allege that she was one of 33 women who went to bed with the 74-year-old billionaire in exchange for money and gifts, including jewellery, cars and rent-free apartments.

New evidence emerged on Friday from the 20,000 pages of prosecution evidence of how a "harem" of women were recruited for Mr Berlusconi's so-called "bunga bunga" sex parties.

Telephone conversations intercepted by investigators revealed that women were referred to in code as "parcels" to be "delivered" to Mr Berlusconi and other clients.

The chief recruiter of the women was allegedly Dario 'Lele' Mora, 55, a celebrity talent scout and a friend of the prime minister, who is one of three of his associates being investigated for procuring prostitutes.

He has denied acting as "a pimp" for the prime minister.

However in a leaked wiretapped conversation he allegedly told one showgirl, Roberta Bonasia, 26, to dress up in a kinky nurse's uniform, instructing her that the prime minister liked to "pretend to be ill".

Mr Berlusconi is likely to miss a hearing on Monday for a separate trial in which one of his companies, Mediaset, is accused of tax fraud and embezzlement. He has denied all the allegations.

Instead he is expected to travel to Tunis to hold talks with the Tunisian government on trying to stem the flow of migrants and refugees trying to reach Italy by boat.







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Silvio Berlusconi (help·info) (born 29 September 1936) is an Italian politician, the current Prime Minister of Italy, as well as a successful entrepreneur. He is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Italy, a position he has held on three separate occasions: from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006 and currently since 2008. He is the leader of the People of Freedom political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 2009. As of November 2009, he is the longest-serving current leader of a G8... Full Article At Wikipedia.org



Times of India (more info) -

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Silvio-Berlusconi




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Profile: Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister

After three terms in office, Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's longest serving post-war prime minister as well as one of its richest men.

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Silvio Berlusconi has had three periods in office as prime minister

The 74-year-old and his family have built a fortune estimated at $9bn (£5.6bn) by US business magazine Forbes.

And his business acumen - with an empire spanning media, advertising, insurance, food and construction - has been sufficient evidence for many Italians of his ability to run their country too.

He owns one of Italy's most successful football clubs, AC Milan, and his investment company controls the country's three biggest private TV stations. As prime minister, his appointees control the three RAI public channels too.

Mr Berlusconi has dodged a series of political, sex and corruption scandals but the constant drip of accusations against him has seen many of his friends and allies drift away.

His second wife Veronica Lario began divorce proceedings in May 2009 and told one newspaper she could not stay with a man who "consorted with minors".

And in November 2010, his former political ally, Gianfranco Fini, called on him to resign, as revelations emerged about a teenaged Moroccan nightclub dancer named Ruby.

Ever the survivor, Mr Berlusconi then scraped through a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Continue reading the main story

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The best political leader in Europe and the world”
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Silvio Berlusconi, on himself

But on 15 February, examining judge Cristina Di Censo ordered Mr Berlusconi to stand trial on 6 April on charges of paying for sex with Ruby, named Karima El Mahroug, when she was 17.

He has also been charged with abuse of power in another case related to Ruby.

Legal battles

Mr Berlusconi, a native of Milan, has frequently complained that he is being victimised by the city's legal authorities.

He has been accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge. But he has always denied wrongdoing and has never been definitively convicted.

Continue reading the main story
Silvio Berlusconi's three suspended trials
Accused of bribing British lawyer David Mills to give false testimony in 1997
He and other executives accused of inflating the price paid for TV rights
He and others accused of fraud and embezzlement over TV rights acquisition

A number of cases have come to trial. In some cases he has been acquitted. In others, he has been convicted, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. In others still, the statute of limitations has expired before the case could reach its conclusion.

In 2009, Mr Berlusconi estimated that over twenty years he had made 2,500 court appearances in 106 trials, at a legal cost of 200m euros.

His government passed reforms shortening the statute of limitations for fraud, but part of a 2010 law granting him and other senior ministers temporary immunity has been struck down by the Constitutional Court, which left the decision up to individual trial judges.

Entrepreneur

Born on 29 September 1936, Silvio Berlusconi began his career by selling vacuum cleaners and built a reputation as a crooner in nightclubs and on cruise ships.

He graduated in law in 1961 and then set up Edilnord, a construction company, establishing himself as a residential housing developer around his native Milan. Milano 2, comprising nearly 4,000 tasteful flats in a garden setting, was built on the city's eastern outskirts in the late 1960s.

Ten years later he launched a local cable-television outfit - Telemilano - which would grow into Italy's biggest media empire, Mediaset.

His huge Fininvest holding company now has Mediaset, Italy's largest publishing house Mondadori, the daily newspaper Il Giornale, AC Milan and dozens of other companies under its umbrella.

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Silvio Berlusconi collapses while making a political speech in 2006

Forza Italia

In 1993, Mr Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia - Go Italy - named after a chant used by AC Milan fans.

The following year he became prime minister, forming a coalition with the right-wing National Alliance and Northern League.

But rivalries between the three leaders, coupled with Mr Berlusconi's indictment for alleged tax fraud by a Milan court, led to the collapse of the government just seven months later.

He lost the 1996 election to the left-wing Romano Prodi but by 2001 he was back in power, in coalition once more with his former partners.

He lost the 2006 general election, again to Romano Prodi, having headed the longest-serving Italian government since World War II.

No slowing down

The Italian leader appears younger than his 74 years, partly because of a hair transplant and plastic surgery around his eyes.

But in November 2006, after his election defeat, Mr Berlusconi collapsed at a party rally. He was later fitted with a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat and said he needed to slow down.

But he was back in office for a third term in April 2008, having defeated centre-left leader Walter Veltroni with a new centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL), incorporating his own Forza Italia and the National Alliance.

The perma-tanned, wrinkle-free politician appeared politically stronger than ever in the early part of his third term.

His swift reaction to a deadly earthquake that struck the central region of Abruzzo in April 2009 is thought to have boosted his popularity.

And just moments after being assaulted in the street in Milan in December 2009, Mr Berlusconi got out of the car into which he had been bundled by security guards, to show the crowd he was not badly injured.

Bitter argument

But although his opponents on the left appeared fragmented, his political allies began to fall away. In April 2010, he and his coalition partner Gianfranco Fini had a bitter argument at a live televised party congress.

Mr Berlusconi survived several confidence votes in parliament during the summer because Mr Fini and his supporters had refrained from voting against him, but by December Mr Fini's loyalists had left the government and the margin of victory was just three votes.

And his political struggles have been accompanied by a string of lascivious reports in the Italian press about his private life.

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Karima El Mahroug - or Ruby - denies having sex with Mr Berlusconi

Berlusconi's women

In May 2009, his second wife said she was divorcing him after he was photographed at the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model, Noemi Letizia. She also accused him of selecting a "shamelessly trashy" list of candidates for the European parliament.

He faced further scandal when photos were published of topless women and a naked man at his villa on Sardinia, and also of a celebrity using the prime minister's official jet to fly to the island.

In July 2009, audio recordings appeared in the Italian media which were said to be between the prime minister and an escort, Patrizia D'Addario, who said she and other women were paid to attend parties at his residence in Rome.

Further reports about young women were to come. It emerged in October 2010 that Mr Berlusconi had called a police station asking for the release of the 17-year-old Ruby, who was being held for theft and who was also said to have attended Mr Berlusconi's parties.

She denies they had sex.

Mr Berlusconi has had to bat away other allegations about parties involving young prostitutes at his own residences.

Mr Berlusconi has always maintained he is "no saint". Faced with potentially the most damaging allegations so far, he has now firmly denied ever paying for sex with a woman.


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Q&A: Berlusconi trial
What are the legal challenges facing Italy's longest-serving post-war leader, Silvio Berlusconi?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12403119

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2011/02/the_berlusconi_show_1.html


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11982228


http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9274336.stm


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11963648



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Berlusconi: 'It's an embarrassment' Watch
Prosecutors in Italy have requested an immediate trial for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, over allegations that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and then used his influence to cover it up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12409522












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