Berlusconi faces ‘second under-age prostitute’ claim

James Bone Rome

Last updated January 27 2011 12:44PM

Silvio Berlusconi faces new questions today about the presence of an under-age Brazilian girl at his alleged “bunga bunga” sex parties.

A new 227-page dossier presented by Milan prosecutors to parliament contains phone records showing that Iris Berardi, a reputed prostitute, twice visited Mr Berlusconi’s homes before her 18th birthday, the legal age for prostitution in Italy.

Ms Berardi, who reportedly moved to Milan from her home in Forli and became a prostitute at 17 and turned 18 on December 28, 2009, visited Mr Berlusconi’s Villa Certosa in Sardinia on November 21, 2009, at a time when the Prime Minister was in Saudi Arabia.

She also allegedly spent the night at his Villa San Martino outside Milan on December 13, 2009. That was the evening Mr Berlusconi was hit in the face with a statuette by a deranged man.

Mr Berlusconi is already under investigation by Milan prosecutors for allegedly paying for sex with another under-age prostitute, Karima El Mahroug, a Moroccan belly-dancer whose stagename was Ruby Heart-Stealer.

The 227 pages of documents involve a torrent of new allegations, including a detailed description of an alleged “bunga-bunga” sex party. They were presented to support a request to search the office of the Prime Minister’s personal accountant.

According to extracts published on the website of the news magazineL’espresso, a belly dancer named Maria Makdoum described what happened at one “bunga-bunga” party.

“When dinner ended, the Prime Minister said: ‘And now let’s do the bunga-bunga’ and explained what it was, a sexual thing.

“You belly dance. The De Vivo [twins] in knickers and bras. The Prime Minister touched them and they touched him in his private parts,” she said.

“Then the Brazilian girl in a loincloth danced the samba in a X-rated manner. The Prime Minister touched her breast and other intimate parts. The other girls also danced, showing their breasts and their backs, all approaching the Prime Minister, who touched them on their private parts. I was horrified.”

The prosecutors also reported that police had confiscated 12kg of cocaine from a man who lived with Marystelle Polanco. She is a dancer on one of Mr Berlusconi’s television channels who has said she had sex with him because he helped to pay her daughter’s medical bills.

The man, identified as Ramirez della Rosa, was allegedly using a Mini Cooper on loan to Ms Polanco from Nicole Minetti, the half-British former dental hygienist-turned-politician who is accused of recruiting prostitutes for the Prime Minister.

Prosecutors yesterday summoned Ms Minetti, whose British mother is a dance teacher in the beach resort of Rimini, to appear for questioning on February 1.

Mr Berlusconi, who is under investigation for allegedly paying for sex with an under-age prostitute named “Ruby Heart-Stealer” and then intervening with police to have her released when she was arrested for theft, called the prosecutors’ latest move “scandalous”.

“I’ve been through so many things in my life,” he said, “and I’ve always come out just fine.”

Niccolò Ghedini, his lawyer, dismissed the prosecutors’ case as “only gossip, phone calls between girls”.

The dossier reportedly also includes a notebook belonging to “Ruby”, the Moroccan belly-dancer, listing money and gifts she had allegedly received from Mr Berlusconi and his entourage.

The prosecutors’ new onslaught came just hours after Mr Berlusconi’s defence team submitted its own version of events to parliament.

Defence witnesses, ranging from a DJ and a bodyguard to a famous journalist and Ruby herself, described the alleged “bunga-bunga” parties as normal dinners with no sex and only moderate drinking, with many guests sticking to Diet Coke and water. One said that the raciest the parties got was karaoke singing.

Nicole Minetti, who is accused of recruiting prostitutes for Silvio Berlusconi Matteo Bazzi/EPA

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article2890247.ece#tab-5