Bunga bunga parties ‘livened up Berlusconi’s evenings’
SILVIO BERLUSCONI paid for sex with underage showgirls and models “to liven up his evenings”, a court was told.
The billionaire businessman, 85, was described by a prosecutor as “a sultan with a harem” following his divorce.
Although the “bunga bunga” party scandal emerged more than a decade ago, when Mr Berlusconi was prime minister, legal proceedings are still dragging through the Italian courts.
He is accused of bribing 28 showgirls and associates to lie on his behalf in an earlier trial, when he was charged with paying for sex with an underage escort, a Moroccan belly dancer whose stage name was Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for “Ruby the heartstealer”).
He was initially found guilty in that trial but later acquitted on appeal after judges ruled he could not have known that Ruby, real name Karima El Mahroug, was just 17 when he slept with her.
“Today, Silvio Berlusconi is just a sick old man, but at the time he had the world at his feet. He hosted groups of concubines, sex slaves paid to liven up his evenings,” Tiziana Siciliano, a prosecutor, told a court in Milan. The former premier’s treatment of the women was repugnant, the prosecutor said.
“He did damage to these very young girls, some of them underage, who often did not have the means to protect themselves from such predators.”
Mr Berlusconi allegedly paid the women with “money, property and cars” in order to buy their silence.
Prosecutors are likely to ask for a jail sentence for Mr Berlusconi at a hearing next week.