Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi was found not guilty of bribing witnesses to lie about his infamous ‘bunga bunga’ parties. Reuters File Photo
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been acquitted in an underage prostitution case that brought his downfall over a decade back.
The 86-year-old was found not guilty of bribing witnesses to lie about his infamous “bunga bunga” parties he held at his villa in Arcore, a small town outside Milan when he was the premier.
Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is a key part of prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s conservative government, wrote on Instagram the acquittal had ended years of “suffering, of mud and of incalculable political damage”, reported The Associated Press (AP).
The billionaire media mogul was accused of bribing 24 guests at his parties to give false testimony in a previous trial where he was accused of paying for sex with 17-year-old Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima el-Mahroug, known by her stage name, Ruby Rubacuori, or Ruby Heartstealer.
Prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence for him, as well as 10 million euros ($10.7 million) in damages.
Another 28 people, including el-Mahroug, have also been acquitted by an Italian court in the bribery case.
This was the third trial in the scandal that rocked Italy after it came out in 2010. A year later, the scandal marked the end of Berlusconi’s fourth government.
What were these notorious “bunga bunga” parties and how did they come to light? Let’s take a closer look.
Sex, orgies and more
As per The Mirror report, the ‘bunga bunga’ parties were “lavish sex parties” where young women allegedly danced and stripped for Berlusconi.
Prosecutors listed 33 women that they alleged were paid to have sex with Berlusconi. They said these parties followed the same pattern; starting with dinner which had foods in red, white and green of Italy’s tricolour flag and ending with Berlusconi choosing “one or more women with whom he spent the night in an intimate relationship”, The Mirror reported.
Imane Fadil, a Moroccan model who was a regular guest at these parties, testified in 2012 against the former prime minister, revealing that women dressed up as nuns and stripped while performing “raunchy pole dances”, the report added.
Fadil died in March 2019 after being admitted to a hospital in Milan for severe stomach pains. Her death raised several questions as she had told her lawyer she had been poisoned. However, doctors later ruled out radioactive poisoning as a cause of death.
In a public testimony in 2013, el-Mahroug said she attended about a half-dozen parties under her nickname Ruby and after each one Berlusconi handed her an envelope containing up to 3,000 euros ($3,900), reported AP.
Karima el-Mahroug (left) has also been acquitted in the bribery case related to ‘bunga bunga parties’. AP File Photo
Ruby or el-Mahroug said she first met Berlusconi on Valentine’s Day 2010 when she was 17 at his private villa, where he gave her an envelope of $2,600 to $3,900 as she was leaving, saying it was “a little help”, AP reported.
She said these parties took place in a disco in Berlusconi’s villa where she also saw women dressed as then-United States president Barack Obama or as a prominent Milan prosecutor, who the billionaire media mogul has accused of “persecuting” him.
“The girls who were dressed in costumes approached him in a sensual way as they danced. They raised their skirts,” El-Mahroug testified then, as per AP.
She claimed the bunga bunga sessions soon led to “orgies” among male and female guests, The Mirror report said.
El-Mahroug told prosecutor Antonio Sangermano that Berlusconi “explained” to her that “bunga bunga consisted of a harem that he copied from his friend Gaddafi (the former Libyan dictator), in which the girls take their clothes off and have to provide physical pleasures”, the report noted.
How did it all come to light?
These ‘bunga bunga’ parties first came to light in October 2010, when the then-Italian prime minister Berlusconi personally rang up a police station and asked for the release of then 17-year-old el-Mahroug, who was accused of stealing a 3,000-euro bracelet, as per The Mirror.
The billionaire media tycoon told the police to release her because he thought she was the niece of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and the incident could strain diplomatic relations. The New Yorker noted that el-Mahroug was not related to Mubarak.
Silvio Berlusconi has claimed that his parties were just ‘convivial’ dinners. Reuters File Photo
Prosecutors later alleged that Berlusconi was afraid that el-Mahroug’s participation in his bunga bunga parties would be revealed during the police questioning, as per The Mirror.
Berlusconi has admitted to inviting women to his parties but claimed they were “convivial” dinners. He has also acknowledged giving money to many guests but claimed it was offered as compensation for the “reputational damage” they had suffered because of being linked to his infamous parties, as per Reuters.
He and el-Mahroug have also denied having sex when she was a minor.
While he was eventually acquitted in the Ruby case, with an appeals court ruling that though he paid a teenager for sex, there was no evidence to prove he knew she was underage. The scandal came to haunt him again when he was accused of bribing witnesses.
Berlusconi’s political career has been marked by legal battles and he was temporarily banned from political office after he was convicted of tax fraud in 2013. The ban has long ended and the former Italian prime minister currently sits in the Senate after he won a seat in the 2022 national elections.
With inputs from agencies
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