Silvio Berlusconi

Berlusconi Under Fire Over Help for Runaway

By STACY MEICHTRY

  NOVEMBER 1, 2010

==================================================================================

ROME—Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was facing mounting criticism Sunday after an Italian newspaper reported that he personally intervened to request the release of a young woman from police custody in the spring.

The case of "Ruby," as the 17 year-old runaway is nicknamed, emerged last week when Italian newspapers reported that she attended parties at Mr. Berlusconi's villa earlier this year. Mr. Berlusconi swiftly dismissed the reports as "trash." However, the premier has acknowledged he knew of the young woman, saying his office intervened on her behalf after she was detained by Milan police May 27 for allegedly stealing cash from her friend.

View Full Image

Associated Press

Prime Minister Berlusconi at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Oct. 29, 2010.

"I'm a person of the heart, and I take action whenever there is someone in need of help," Mr. Berlusconi told a press conference Thursday without elaborating on how his office assisted the young woman.

Criticism rained down on Mr. Berlusconi over the weekend, however, after Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera published a series of excerpts culled from police records documenting a phone call allegedly made by the prime minister to the chief of staff of Milan's police chief in the late hours of May 27.

An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the authenticity and accuracy of the published excerpts but declined to comment beyond that. According to one excerpt published Saturday in the newspaper, Mr. Berlusconi told the chief of staff that he knew the girl and identified her as the daughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Police, in questioning the young woman, however, established she was daughter of Moroccan immigrants living in Sicily.

Mr. Berlusconi then told the chief of staff that he was sending Nicole Minetti, a city council member from his political party, to pick up Ruby, according the newspaper report. In a statement, the Milan police department said the girl was released from police custody hours later without being charged in the alleged theft. The girl was then "entrusted" to Ms. Minetti, because efforts to place the girl with social services were "fruitless," police said.

Attempts to reach Mr. Mubarak's office and Ms. Minetti, a former cabaret dancer in Mr. Berlusconi's Mediaset SpA TV network, were unsuccessful.

A spokesman for Mr. Berlusconi declined to comment on whether the premier personally called the chief of staff. He also declined to comment on the police statement or any other matter stemming from the prime minister's alleged links to the young woman. But Nicolo Ghedini, the premier's lawyer, said in a statement issued late Sunday that "a banal telephone call continues to be manipulated when the facts are by now broadly clear." Mr. Ghedini, a lawmaker in Mr. Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party, said the premier's "conduct can only be characterized as absolutely positive." He didn't disclose further details of the nature of the phone call.

The chief of staff to the police chief declined to comment.

After the incident, Milan prosecutors questioned the young woman on her links to Mr. Berlusconi and members of his retinue, and a judge placed her with social services. The prosecutors said they aren't investigating Mr. Berlusconi, though they have placed some members of his entourage under investigation.

========================================

Silvio Berlusconi accused of having 'uncontrollable sickness' for women

Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of suffering from an "uncontrollable sickness" in his relations with women, as the Moroccan teenage belly dancer at the heart of Italy's latest sex scandal said she is writing a book about the affair.

By Nick Squires, Rome
Published: 11:29AM GMT 31 Oct 2010

 

An influential Catholic magazine, La Famiglia Cristiana (The Christian Family) said Mr Berlusconi's obsession with beautiful young women and playboy lifestyle was symptomatic of "a disease, something uncontrollable".

 

"It is incredible that a man in such a position does not have the necessary self-control," wrote the magazine, which is sold in Italian churches every Sunday.

Veronica Lario, Mr Berlusconi's estranged wife and the mother of three of his five children, last year said she believed that he was "unwell", accusing him of "consorting with minors" and announcing that she wanted a divorce after 20 years of marriage.

The magazine said that the scandal, dubbed"Rubygate", was damaging the "credibility and dignity" of the billionaire prime minister and raising questions about his suitability to lead the country.

Mr Berlusconi, 74, has not denied that he knows Miss Keyek, or that he invited her to his parties.

The country's main business newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, said he needed to assure the country that he still had the ability to "exercise his institutional role with the necessary serenity and efficiency."

As the scandal deepened, Corriere della Sera claimed in a front page story that the prime minister personally ordered police officers in Milan to release Miss Keyek from custody and not to press charges against her over the theft allegations.

The newspaper repeated claims that Mr Berlusconi told officers that Miss Keyek, who was also known by her stage name of Ruby, was the "grand-daughter" of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.

The prime minister had reportedly been alerted to the fact that she was in trouble by a Brazilian model to whom he had given his mobile phone number some months previously.

"He gave it to me, saying that I should use it in the event of an emergency," the model, who was not named, told Corriere della Sera. "He gives his personal number to people he knows well."

Miss Keyek was now creating "an ocean of problems" for Mr Berlusconi, the model sThe teenager revealed that she received 7,000 euros after attending a dinner party thrown by the prime minister at his private villa outside Milan.

The daughter of Moroccan immigrants, she is believed not to have a residence permit entitling her to live in Italy. She reportedly told Mr Berlusconi that her ambitions were to gain Italian citizenship and to join the Carabinieri, Italy's paramilitary police force.

She said Mr Berlusconi had originally thought she was in her 20s and that when she revealed she was only 17, he told her that he had had "problems over under-age girls in the past" and that he could no longer have any contact with her.

The prime minister was engulfed in scandal last year when it was revealed that he had attended the 18th birthday party of an underwear model, Noemi Letizia, who calls him 'Papi' or Daddy.

Miss Keyek revealed that she had come close to working as an escort girl, in an interview to be published on Wednesday in a weekly magazine, Oggi. She said she had once received 1,000 euros from a Chinese businessman to go to a hotel with him, but did not have sex.

She said she was pregnant by a boyfriend when she attended the dinner at Mr Berlusconi's residence earlier this year, but later had an abortion.

The aspiring model and showgirl, who turns 18 in November, said she would tell her story in a book. "I've nearly finished it. There will be a chapter on Berlusconi."

She has said she only met him once, and denied having sex with him. "I can only admire and speak well of him, thanks to him I didn't end up on the streets or in indecent jobs," she said in a television interview. "I would tell him 'Thanks from my heart, you're a gentleman, shame that people don't know who you really are.'"

Opposition parties said Mr Berlusconi needed to explain exactly how he had intervened with the police in order to help the teenager. They also said that his friendships with young starlets and models exposed him to blackmail and that he should immediately resign.

"We are not interested in his private life, we are interested in his public life," Pierluigi Bersani, head of the centre-left Democratic Party said in a statement. We want to know what happened between the prime minister's office and the Milan police."

Mr Berlusconi's approval ratings have fallen to their lowest level since he was elected in May 2008..

======================================================