Berlusconi to Face Trial in Underage Prostitution Case
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: February 15, 2011
ROME — A Milan judge on Tuesday ordered Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial in April on charges of paying an underage nightclub dancer for sex and abusing his office to help release her from police custody when she was detained for theft, Italian news media reported.
Tony Gentile/Reuters
The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Feb. 9 in Rome.
The fast-track trial is expected to begin on April 6, according to news reports citing a statement by the Milan judge.
Mr. Berlusconi denies wrongdoing. After the decision on Tuesday, he did not appear at a scheduled news conference in Sicily, where Italy is seeking to stem a flow of more than 5,000 illegal immigrants from Tunisia.
Ever since prosecutors announced last week they would call for an expedited trial, saying they had enough evidence to waive preliminary hearings, Mr. Berlusconi has fought back in the media, accusing the judiciary of a “moral coup” against his leadership.
The prime minister said on Monday that he would not step down, and his center-right coalition, which governs with a narrow majority, has stood by him, even as a growing number of Italians are growing weary of his leadership. As the crisis wears on, no one has ruled out early elections before his mandate ends in 2013.
The president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, who has the power to dissolve Parliament and call early elections, said on Tuesday that the growing showdown between the executive and the judiciary posed “reasons for anxiety,” Italian news media reported.
On Sunday, thousands took to the streets in Italian cities and worldwide in coordinated demonstrations that organizers said were aimed at restoring the dignity of Italian women amid the latest sex scandal and after years in which Mr. Berlusconi has routinely appointed television showgirls to political office.
The judge’s ruling comes weeks after prosecutors said they were investigating the prime minister on charges that he paid Karima El Mahroug, a nightclub dancer nicknamed Ruby Heart-Stealer, for sex before she turned 18 and abused his office in calling police to intervene when she was detained in May for theft.
Mr. Berlusconi has said he called police to avoid “an international diplomatic incident” because he had been told that the Moroccan-born Ms. Mahroug was the niece of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The age of consent is 14 in Italy and prostitution is legal, but not with a minor under the age of 18.
Both Mr. Berlusconi and Ms. Mahroug say they did not have sex, although Ms. Mahroug said the prime minister gave her 7,000 Euros the first time she came to his villa for a party last spring. In a television interview last month, she said she had made up “a parallel life,” telling people she was Egyptian, not Moroccan, although she did not reveal whether she had ever claimed to be Mr. Mubarak’s niece.
The trial would not be Mr. Berlusconi’s first. Over the years, he has emerged largely unscathed from a dizzying list of legal troubles, including charges of corruption, tax evasion and bribing judges. In each case, he was either acquitted on appeal or the statute of limitations in the cases ran out.
In the new trial, Mr. Berlusconi would not have to appear in court but could do so if he chose.
Piero Longo, a lawyer for Mr. Berlusconi, said in a television interview on Tuesday that the judge’s decision was “exactly what we expected.” Noting that Mr. Berlusconi would be tried before a panel of three women judges, he said, “Great. Women are always welcome, sometimes even agreeable,” the center-left daily La Repubblica reported.
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