Alleged Berlusconi call-girl testifies in court for the first time

Karima El Mahrough leaves the Milan courtroom after questioning by judges in the trial.

AFP/Milan

The woman alleged to have had sex for money with then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi when she was just 17 testified in court for the first time yesterday at a trial of three friends accused of pimping for him.

Karima El-Mahroug described “sensual” soirees in a discotheque at Berlusconi’s villa in 2010 that invitees called the “bunga bunga”, saying that she was paid 2,000 or 3,000 euros ($2,600 or $3,900) a night.

But the woman, better known by her nickname Ruby the Heart Stealer, denied ever having sex with Berlusconi and said she had never received 5mn euros ($6.4mn) from him as she told friends in phone calls that were tapped by police.

“I never had sexual relations with him,” she told the court in Milan, adding: “I’ve always refused to be a prostitute.”

Confronted repeatedly by prosecutors with contradictions between what she told investigators and what she said in the telephone wiretaps, El-Mahroug said she “always talked rubbish” or “could not remember” particular conversations.

Judge Annamaria Gatto at one point interrupted her saying: “This is a trial, not a television show.”

The Moroccan-born 21-year-old, a teenage runaway and exotic dancer, also admitted that she had lied to investigators who had questioned her in 2010.

El-Mahroug told them at the time that she had said to Berlusconi she was a minor but in court she said: “As far as he knew, I was 23 or 24.”

“Sometimes I just lied automatically,” she added.

She said that at Berlusconi’s house she saw up to 20 girls stripping for the prime minister in a variety of costumes but had never seen physical “contact” between the host and the young women.

El-Mahroug said Berlusconi had asked her for her number and would call her up to invite her, and she would sometimes stay the night with other girls.

El-Mahroug was testifying at the trial of three of Berlusconi’s friends: Lele Mora, a bankrupt former show business agent, Emilio Fede, a network anchor for Berlusconi’s television empire, and Nicole Minetti, a showgirl and politician.

The three are accused of supplying girls for the allegedly raunchy “bunga bunga” parties.

Berlusconi says they were “normal dinner parties” followed by “burlesque contests”.

El-Mahroug said she first met Fede at a beauty contest in Sicily when she was 16 and he had asked her for her phone number.

She said she had also worked for Mora as an “image girl” at parties.

El-Mahroug said Minetti was a regular attendee at the parties and she had once seen her perform a strip show for Berlusconi dressed as a nun.

Berlusconi’s separate trial for allegedly having sex with El-Mahroug as a suspected underage prostitute, and for abuse of office, is due to conclude next month after more than two years.

El-Mahroug had been due to testify at that trial but initially said she could not attend as she was in Mexico and was subsequently struck off the witness list by both the prosecution and defence.

Berlusconi is accused of pressuring police to have El-Mahroug released from custody when she was arrested for petty theft so she would not reveal their liaison.

His defence says he thought she was the niece of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and only wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident.

El-Mahroug said yesterday that she had made up a story about her life the first time she met with Berlusconi at his home in February 2010 and told him that she was “a relative of Mubarak”.

Prosecutors have requested that Berlusconi serve six years in prison and be banned from holding any public office for life in that trial, also in Milan, in which the verdict is expected on June 24.

The 76-year-old ex-premier is a senator and as leader of the People of Freedom party is a key player in a grand coalition government with the centre-left Democratic Party unveiled last month.

Berlusconi denies all charges and his supporters say the trial as well as several other legal cases against him are an attempt by biased left-wing prosecutors to eliminate him politically.

Berlusconi is also appealing two convictions for tax fraud and for leaking police wiretaps in a newspaper he owns and is under investigation for paying hush money to an alleged pimp and for bribing a left-wing senator to join his party.