Silvio Berlusconi and his sensitivity to light

Saturday, 9 March, 2013. Silvio Berlusconi takes refuge from Italian judiciary in Milan hospital as two of his trials resume and the country gets stuck in political deadlock.

Last Saturday Silvio Berlusconi was expected to appear in court – the Mediaset trial was on, and the Rubygate was also reaching its apex – but his lawyers gave way to an «escalation of medical certifications» (as prosecutor Ilda Boccassini put it) in order to provide the former prime minister of Italy with a «legitimate impediment», a lawful excuse not to attend.

Cicchitto: «a Stalinist court that sent Nazi doctors to examine Berlusconi,»

What's the matter with him? Uveitis, a kind of conjunctivitis that causes sensitivity to light, headaches, blurred vision and other unpleasant symptoms. Not many chances that the judiciary and Silvio Belusconi will get to see eye to eye... The media tycoon has being treated at Milan's San Raffaele hospital.

It partially worked, as Silvio's request was accepted by the Ruby sex scandal case court, but was rejected by «a Stalinist court that sent Nazi doctors to examine Berlusconi,», as Fabrizio Cicchitto - a top official in the People of Freedom party (PDL) - put it, and found out that Berlusconi could easily attend to a trial, perhaps wearing a fashionable pair of sunglasses. (Translator's note: Historians might find it remarkable that Nazis and Bolsheviks finally found a way to join their goals, just for the sake of bringing Silvio down...).

Silvio Berlusconi and the 1-year prison sentence

Thu, 7 March, 2013 (Saints Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs). Silvio Berlusconi collects another jail sentence as the Unipol case ends, even though the former premier's lawyers stated that «the evidence against [SB] is insufficient.».

Not long ago Silvio Berlusconi could boast of never being sentenced to a single day of prison in spite of the number of trials – more than one hundred – where he has been indicted, for a reason or another (but mainly due to the aggressiveness of the left-wing magistrates, according to the former prime minister of Italy).

One of Silvio's trials

This statement isn't true any more, since in October 2012 he collected the first 4-year sentence at the Mediaset-trial (a decision that made him rethink his retirement from politics...), and in March 2013 he managed to gain another year in prison, due to the Unipol case (when an insurance company – Unipol – takeover bid by Rome's bank Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in 2005 led to the resignation of the governor of the Bank of Italy, Antonio Fazio).

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,».