Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, focused these days on rebuilding ties on the Italian right, continues to face serious accusations in the trial in which he is accused of having bribed witnesses to testify falsehoods about what was happening at his sordid parties. This Wednesday the Milan Prosecutor's Office has come to say that he had "sex slaves" at these evenings, better known as bunga-bunga.
According to the deputy prosecutor of Milan, Tiziana Siciliano, what was happening in their houses in Arcore (Milan) or Palazzo Grazioli (Rome) was something “medieval”, “morally debatable”, “incredible”. "The prime minister in office used to systematically liven up his evenings by receiving groups of odalisques at his house," she said, adding that "a consolidated system of prostitution" operated.
The so-called "Ruby Ter" process is investigating whether the tycoon paid with transfers and gifts to the witnesses of his previous processes, as the Milan Prosecutor's Office defends, so that they lied about what was happening in what he called "elegant dinners", in those that participated girls baptized as the olgettine. The scandal contributed to his political downfall as prime minister in the midst of the European financial crisis, and also a stormy - and expensive - separation from his second wife, Veronica Lario.
In addition to Berlusconi, there are another 28 people charged, including a score of those who were his guests at these parties and the young Moroccan Karima el Mahroug, with whom he had sexual relations when she was still a minor. It is not the first trial that the Italian ex-premier faces. In 2015, he was acquitted in the "Ruby" case, the nickname of Karima el Mahroug, in which he was tried for abuse of power and incitement to prostitution of minors. Later he also faced the Ruby bis trial, in which some collaborators were convicted of inducing prostitution and pimping, such as the Mediaset journalist Emilio Fede or the artists' representative Lele Mora.
Fede has appeared again in today's view as the person who, according to Siciliano, offered women "to the sultan", Berlusconi, to "complete his harem". "Today Berlusconi is a great old man, he is sick, because the certifications show a picture of pathologies," said the prosecutor, referring to the medical tests that his lawyers have used to justify his absences from the trial. Berlusconi, 85, suffered serious complications from covid and has been hospitalized several times in the last year for his heart problems.
But then he was "a man who could have the world at his feet", a president who enjoyed "friendships like Putin's", now the architect of the invasion of Ukraine. Berlusconi has always boasted of his close relationship with the Russian president, but he admits feeling "disappointed" with his old friend.
Due to its complexity, the "Ruby Ter" process is carried out mainly by the Court of Milan, but it is also broken down into the courts of Turin, Pescara, Treviso, Monza and Siena, depending on the location of the banks in which the payment was made. money. Prosecutors are convinced that the tycoon had paid for the silence of his witnesses, and they accuse him of corruption in judicial acts, a serious crime in Italy. In Siena Berlusconi obtained a great triumph when he was acquitted along with the pianist who entertained his parties, Danilo Mariani, for failing to prove that there were bribes.
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