Sex-for-hire: Berlusconi gets seven-year jail

Milan, June 24
A Milan court has convicted former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi of paying for sex with an under-age prostitute during infamous 'bunga bunga' parties at his villa and then using his influence to try to cover it up.

Berlusconi (76) was sentenced to seven years in prison and barred from public office for life. The ban on holding office could mean the end of Berlusconi's two-decade political career. However, there are two more levels of appeal before the sentence would become final.

Berlusconi holds no official post in the current Italian government, but remains influential in the uneasy cross-party coalition that emerged after inconclusive February elections. Both he and the Moroccan woman at the centre of the scandal have denied ever having sex.

Neither Berlusconi nor the woman at the centre of the case, Karima el-Mahroug, better known by her nickname Ruby, have testified in this trial. El-Mahroug was called by the defence but failed to show on a couple of occasions, delaying the trial. Berlusconi's team eventually dropped her from the witness list.

El-Mahroug did testify in the separate trial of three Berlusconi aides charged with procuring prostitutes for the sex-fuelled parties. She told the court that Berlusconi's disco featured aspiring showgirls dressed as sexy nuns and nurses performing striptease acts, and that one woman even dressed up as President Barack Obama and the prosecutor in the sex-for-hire case, Ilda Boccassini.

El-Mahroug, now 20, said she attended about six parties at Berlusconi's villa, and that after each, Berlusconi handed her an envelope with up to $3,900 in denominations of 500.

She said she later received 30,000 euros cash from the then-premier. She was 17 at the time of the alleged encounters. She said she had claimed to be 24. — AP