Exotic dancer Karima El-Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby the Heart Stealer, speaks to journalists as part of a protest yesterday in front of Milan’s courthouse against the trial of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi who is accused of having sex with an underage prostitute.
DPA/Milan
Silvio Berlusconi is a victim of a “war” by Italian magistrates, the nightclub dancer at the centre of the former Italian prime minister’s sex trial said yesterday.
“Today I realise that there is an ongoing war against Berlusconi and I have been caught up in it, but I do not want my life to be destroyed,” Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby Rubacuori (Ruby Heart Stealer), said outside a Milan court.
Speaking to reporters while refusing to answer questions, she broke into tears when recounting that a woman recently looked at her baby daughter and said: “I hope that she will not become like her mother.”
Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with el-Mahroug when she was 17 and he was premier. He is also on trial for pressuring police to release her after she was held on suspicion of theft, telling officers she was a niece of former Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak.
El-Mahroug said she had lied to Berlusconi about her identity, and showed reporters a fake passport with the Mubarak name. She said she lied to escape “from the poverty in which I was born and grew up with and the pain I suffered before and after running away from home.”
She criticised prosecutors for labelling her a prostitute, “despite me always denying ever having had sex for money, and especially with Silvio Berlusconi.” She claimed to have been a victim of “psychological torture” during “relentless questioning.”
El-Mahroug complained about not appearing as a witness in the trial. She was meant to in December, but twice failed to show up in court, and was fined. When she finally appeared before judges in January, Berlusconi’s lawyers decided to skip her testimony.
Berlusconi, 76, has also denied having had a relationship with el-Mahroug.
The prosecution’s case rests on wiretapped conversations, testimony from other girls invited to Berlusconi’s so-called “bunga bunga” parties and evidence found in the girls’ apartments.
If found guilty in the Ruby case, Berlusconi could face between six months and three years in jail for soliciting a minor, and three to eight years’ imprisonment for abuse of power. However, the convictions would not be enforced if he appeals.
The next hearing is due on April 22. The trial may be halted if Italy’s Supreme Court accepts a request from Berlusconi’s lawyers to move proceedings to Brescia, on the grounds that courts in Milan are allegedly biased against the former premier.
