Berlusconi's sex trial ends with a seven years sentence in prison for the ex-PM

Mon, 24 June 2013. Berlusconi found guilty of having abused power and had sex with a under-age prostitute, sentenced to seven years in jail.

After more than seven hours of deliberation, today Milan's court judges sentenced to seven years in jail the 76-year old former prime minister of Italy guilty of a couple of charges related to the Rubygate (the inquiry about the Moroccan belly dancer - and allegedly whore - Karima El Mahroug ).

7-year jail sentence for Mr Berlusconi

The sentence involves a ban from holding public office for life. All this pending the outcome of an appeal.

Berlusconi's army is not made only of women in skimpy clothes, as you might think. Look at the freedom fighters.

Saturday, 8 June, 2013. Rumour has it that the newly formed Freedom Army is recruiting youngsters from schools, as it is sufficient to be 16 to help Silvio Berlusconi fight the Twenty Years' War and a large number of crusaders is needed to defeat the hordes communists dwelling in the country.

The Freedom Army recruiting web page

The Freedom Army (Esercito della Libertà) – also known as “Esercito di Silvio” (“Silvio's Army”) – is new initiative created by the entrepreneur Simone Furlan, founded with the goal to recruit volunteer crusaders to defend the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi from the continuous attacks from the judiciary, the communists, the anti-democratic forces and their allies.

A clearly example of the bad faith of the prosecutors is the fact that they accused Silvio's former lover Nicole Minetti of having had sex for money with the billionaire, whilst she was in love with him.

The jihad that the freedom fighters are expected to fight is the Twenty Years' War, a war clearly explained in a documentary broadcast by Mediaset's Canale 5, titled “The Twenty Years' War – Ruby's Last Act”.

Berlusconi and Ruby, the lying stripper

Fri, 24 May, 2013. Testifying as a witness at the a trial were three individuals are charged for favouring prostitution, Moroccan stripper Karima El Mahroug (aka Ruby the Heartstealer says she was “talking crap” when she gave away details of spicy parties at Silvio Berlusconi's villa."

Me a prostitute? If not a saint, I might be a nun!

Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for Heartstealer) appeared on the trial (which is already a news, she sometimes forget about it...) where former TV presenter (and Berlusconi's friend, at least before he got dramatically fired by Mediaset, in 2012) Emilio Fede, celebrity agent Lele Mora and Nicole Minetti, a former Lombardy local councillor, model and showgirl are accused of supplying prostitutes to Mr Berlusconi's so-called "bunga-bunga" festive evenings in his villa in Arcore. Nicole said she had been hanging around just because she was the one and only girlefriend of the media millionaire.

Berlusconi and the twenty years' war against the judges

Sun, 12 May, 2013. Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset broadcaster Canale 5 airs a two-hour documentary to demonstrate prosecutors sex-related charges against the former prime minister are groundless (at least to the public opinion), as a last act of a counteroffensive against the Italian judiciary.

All but chaste

“The twenty years' war” is the title of a two-hour documentary, that was aired on Sunday, the day before the prosecutor's closing arguments would be declared at the Rubygate sex scandal trial (the request would be a 6-year sentence), where Silvio Berlusconi is accused of abuse of power and having paid the then-minor Karima El-Mahroug (aka Ruby Heartstealer, Ruby Rubacuori in Italian) for sex. 

Silvio Berlusconi's stand is that the dinners where young girls and women were invited (some of them were just kept at hand in the bunga-bunga army) were pretty “normal soirées” and that his guests “kept their cloths on”. Nicole Minetti was not an organiser (was she his grilfriend at that time, as she declared?). Prosecution thinks he has been running a prostitution ring. So far they have been finding it difficult to reconcile the two different positions.

Berlusconi at odds with Francesca Pascale?

Tuesday, 9 April, 2013. Meeting up with political opponents Enrico Letta and Pier Luigi Bersani (in order to find a common path for the election of the new head of state of Italy) Silvio Berlusconi finds time to complain about his girlfriend Francesca Pascale's attitudes.

The photo published by the newspaper Libero (real or fake?)

It might be quite unusual for Silvio Berlusconi to meet up with adversaries (especially when they are old wily communists, like Pier Luigi Bersani), but for sure it is unprecedented for the former prime minister of Italy to take it out on his beloved Neapolitan girlfriend (their engagement was made public last December) with them.

Yet that's exactly what happened, according to the right-wing newspaper Libero, as the presidente of the People of Liberty party (PdL) decided to have a chat with two of the Democratic Party's (PD) leaders, about how to get to vote for successor to the president of Italy Giorgio Napolitano without any squabble (if possible).

Silvio Berlusconi's protégé Karima-Ruby says she is not a prostitute (though others seem to think otherwise)

Rubygate: who knows the truth
and who's interested in it?

Thursday, 4 April, 2013. Silvio Berlusconi's favourite belly dancer (and alleged prostitute) Ruby the Heart Stealer holds an emotional protest in front of Milan's tribunal (and raises angry reaction from other bunga-bunga women).

“The Ruby case: Are you not interested in the truth any more?” read on the signed carried by the curvaceous Ruby the Heartstealer (real name: Karima El Mahroug) as the young Moroccan staged a protest (this time properly dressed up) by reading a statement to the journalists. 

Prosecutors state that Ruby had paid sex with Silvio Berlusconi when she was 17, and the billionaire is also accused of having abused of his position as prime minister, when he intervened with police after Karima was arrested because she was accused of stealing money from a friend.

Has Silvio Berlusconi been running a “prostitution ring”?

Monday, 4 March, 2013. Silvio Berlusconi has been running a prostitution ring, according to prosecutors' final arguments in the last episode of the Rubygate sex scandal related proceedings.

Karima El-Mahroug, aka Ruby the Heart Stealer

Silvio Berlusconi is on trial – he managed to postpone the proceeding, due to the general elections, but now he is running out of excuses... -, since he is accused of soliciting an under-age prostitute (the Moroccan Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby Rubacuori i.e. Ruby Heart Stealer) and for abuse of power, for having managed to free the aforementioned Ruby Heart Stealer from the strong arm of the law, and ushered her into the hands of Milan's municipality's councillor (party-organizer and part-time bikini-model) Nicole Minetti, by illicit means (amongst them he apparently said to the police that Karima-Ruby - apparently - was the granddaughter of Egypt's former dictator Hosni Mubarak).

Silvio Berlusconi heading to the court

By doing this, Silvio – who at the time was Italy's prime minister – recruited the Moroccan belly-dancer (and alleged call girl) into the bunga-bunga army, a bunch of young women - the bunga-bunga girls - to be used for entertainment during parties in his villa in Arcore. The women used to get a bed where to sleep, 2,500 euro a month ($3,250 or £2,160), plus gifts and presents in case of birthdays or name days.

The prosecutor – Antonio Sangermano – said that Karima El-Mahroug (who was 17, when first attended a so-called bunga-bunga party) was "an integral part" of a "complex prostitution ring". In the next days the prosecutors will publish the requested sentence, the defence will reply on 11 March, and on 18 March the trail will end with a verdict.

All this is hardly likely to help the difficult relationship between the former premier of Italy and the Italian Judiciary, which – according to Silvio Berlusconi – is «more dangerous than the Sicilian Mafia,».