Wednesday, April 6 2011. The first session of the Silvio Berlusconi's Rubygate trial has been adjourned, after 15 minutes.
Do you know how trials work in Italy? The so-called “Rubygate” proceedings are a good example of that. Silvio Berlusconi is accused of having paid an under-age prostitute for her services, namely Karima El Mahroug, aka Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for "Ruby Heartstealer", the nom de guerre of the girl). Other women were believed to have received money for the same reason, but they were adults, and that's not a crime in Italy (I mean: it's not a crime to give money in exchange for sex to women above 18).
Court and press
The first hearings were due for on 6 April. The build-up was huge. An extensive international press coverage was set-up. Outside of the fascist-era court building in Milan an assemblage people gathered: curious folks, Berlusconi tireless haters and fans.
Friday, 12 September 2003. Publication of excerpts from a Silvio Berlusconi's interview with The Spectator, released in Porto Rotondo (Sardinia), in the month of August. Bad jokes, this time, from the Italian tycoon.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
Not many people would ever describe Benito Mussolini as a “benvolent” leader who “sent people on holiday to confine”. Berlusconi does it, in an interviewed by the British conservative magazine The Spectator, showing he has quite a peculiar idea about how Italy was run at that time. Actually during the same interview Mr Berlusconi is describing the Italian judges – or at least some of them – as “mentally disturbed”. So he has a peculiar idea about many Italian matters, of the present and of the past. Or – perhaps – he just like having fun with his jokes.
Anyhow. The magazine quoted the Italian Prime Minister saying that “Mussolini never killed anybody” as he is comparing the former Fascist dictator with Saddam Hussein, a real villain.
Silvio like Benito?
The Jewish community of Rome, in the person of his President, Amos Luzzatto, says that Mr Berlusconi's words caused him “profound pain”.
Mussolini's persecution of Jews started in 1938, and some 7,000 people were deported. It is believed that almost 6,000 of them never came back alive.
This is a really bad joke, even if Berlusconi's quotes are quite often bad jokes, even if Silvio keeps saying that the misinterpretation is due to the bottle of champagne he's been drinking with Nicholas Farrell – the journalists (who just can't recall it) – as they chatted as good old friends.
Wednesday, March 30 2011. The tricky ways of Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers (in the intent of finding any possible way out of the sex scandale dubbed Rubygate).
Niccolò Ghedini, lawyer
As the Prime Minister was showing off in Lampedusa, his army of indefatigable lawyers (led by Niccolò Ghedini) and solicitors were preparing for the mother of all battles, to be fought in few days.
Mara Carfagna, minister
The public prosecutors - who pledged to shut Silvio Berlusconi behind bars, sooner of later – this time are trying to prove that the PM had sex with an under-age dancer, Karima El Mahroug (commonly known as Ruby “Rubacuori”, the Heart Stealer). And paid money for her "sexual services".
More and more people refer to this sex scandal as the Rubygate.
The first hearings will take place on 6 April (if the Parliament is not going to rule the date off on the previous day, when a vote conflict of competence is foreseen), that's why Berlusconi's lawyers are sharpening their knives.
Amongst the trickiest possible weapons, one of the smartest, if you want to drag things out is the following: pack the witness box with people, possible celebrities, to make the greatest possible fuss.
That's why there are almost 80 witnesses (more then a few are women) ready to be heard.
Clooney and Canalis, friends
The defence has called the following witnesses, amongst the others (quite a few are women, beautiful women): Venezuelan showgirl Aida Yespica and Argentinian actress and showgirls Belèn Rodriguez (there is a numerous colony of South American beauties in Italy, as you might expect), Minister of for Equal Opportunity Mara Carfagna (Maxim's "World´s Hottest Politician”), Public Education's Minister Mariastella Gelmini and Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini, Neapolitan singer Mariano Apicella, journalist (and king of gossip) Carlo Rossella, anchorwoman Barbara D'Urso, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, Hollywood star George Clooney and his girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis.
Quite a list, isn't it? Funny Berlusconi.
A bewildered George Clooney considers “odd” the idea that he could be called as a witness in the bunga-bunga sex scandal trial of Silvio Berlusconi, since he only met the Italian prime minister once (and it was in relation of quite a different topic: raising money for the population of Darfour).
Ilda Boccassini, judge
On the other side of the fence, the judge Ilda Boccassini and her prosecutors have also prepared quite a long list of witnesses (more than 130), but 33 (or perhaps 43, as somebody said) out of them are just, you know, bunga-bunga girls and women.
