Prosecutors investigating Silvio Berlusconi were on Friday told that he would not answer their questions as a witness came forward with new, apparently damaging evidence against him.
The evidence came from Nadia Macri, a prostitute who went to a police station in Milan to give a statement. Late on Thursday, she told a television interviewer she had been with Karima el-Mahroug, the teenager at the centre of the Berlusconi affair, at a party in the Italian prime minister’s mansion that became an orgy.
Macri said that on April 24 last year the then 17-year-old Mahroug, known as Ruby Rubacuori (Ruby the Heartstealer), was dancing topless and a bit drunk round a pole in a specially equipped room at Berlusconi’s home outside Milan. In a remark which may have been aimed at Italy’s beleaguered prime minister, Pope Benedict XVI told an audience of police officers that public officials must “rediscover their spiritual and moral roots”.
An opposition politician close to the Vatican, Pier Ferdinando Casini of the Christian Democratic Union of the Centre (UDC), cast doubt on that interpretation, saying: “A true Catholic listens to the pope and never uses him for his own ends.”
But the pope’s remarks echoed comments on Thursday by his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who urged public figures to be “committed to a more robust morality, a sense of justice and lawfulness”.
Berlusconi reportedly told his weekly Cabinet meeting the cardinal’s comments were too vague and generic to have been intended for him.
Berlusconi is formally under investigation on suspicion of paying a juvenile prostitute and then abusing his authority to cover up the fact. Ruby, a Moroccan runaway, was arrested by police in Milan last May.
But instead of being returned to care, she was handed over to a woman claimed to have recruited many of the female guests for Berlusconi’s parties.
The police released Ruby following a call from the prime minister’s office claiming that she was a grand-daughter of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.
‘Hardcore scenes’
Berlusconi and Ruby have denied having sex, and none of the evidence published so far offers cast-iron proof that she was rewarded for sexual services. Macri’s eyewitness evidence could, therefore, be crucial.
Another guest has said she was told by Ruby that she had sex with the prime minister.
And documents submitted to Parliament on Monday show police intercepted a text message from her boyfriend in which he referred to her “hardcore scenes with the pr — with the person”.
Berlusconi had been asked to give his side of the story by Monday. But a letter from his lawyers said he would not do so because they contend that the Milan prosecutors’ department has no jurisdiction over the case.
Berlusconi’s mansion is in another judicial catchment area, as is the house of a police official to whom the call from the prime minister’s office was diverted last May. According to Macri’s account, she and Ruby both received €5 000 from Berlusconi for attending his party.
She said that after sharing a swimming pool with an allegedly nude prime minister and five or six other girls, she watched as he headed for a room used for massages.
“After a bit, he said: ‘Next one. Next one.’ And every five minutes we opened the door and had sexual relations. One at a time.”
Another woman who has attended the 74-year-old prime minister’s parties, Marysthell Garcia Polanco, cast doubt on Macri’s account, however. “He’s not Superman,” she said.
The Vatican’s stance could be crucial to Berlusconi’s chances of survival. He has done the Roman Catholic church a number of favours, providing it with tax breaks and closely following the Vatican’s teachings on ethical issues such as euthanasia and in-vitro fertilisation.
His government’s fate is expected to be decided in a few weeks by a parliamentary vote on tax reform sponsored by the rightwing Northern League, whose leader, Umberto Bossi, is Berlusconi’s last remaining ally.
Bossi has signalled that he is ready to bring down the government if it is not approved and the chances of its being passed may well depend on the votes of the UDC. – guardian.co.uk