Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that an enquiry launched by Milan magistrates into his alleged relationship with an underage prostitute was politically motivated.
“There’s been no graft, no incitement to prostitution, not even of a minor,” Berlusconi said in a TV address.
His comments came as Italy reeled from the news magistrates in the country’s second-largest city were accusing Berlusconi of hooking up with prostitutes he kept in rent-free luxury apartments and having sex with an underage prostitute.
Photo: AFP
While paying for sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy, having sex with an underage prostitute has been punishable with a prison sentence since Berlusconi’s right-wing government voted in a law against it in 2006.
The prime minister denounced a “new, very serious attack on the part of the magistrates who have trampled on the laws for political ends” and “want to use the affair as a political weapon.”
The Milan prosecutor’s office announced the investigation on Friday, just a day after a top court ruling partially stripped the prime minister of political immunity.
Prosecutors have demanded Berlusconi submit to interrogation this weekend, but he dismissed the idea. He said the magistrates had tried to undermine him politically, and accused them of “violating basic constitutional principles” such as the right to a private life by wiretapping on guests who attended his parties.
He said the magistrates had used highly sophisticated technology to spy on his guests, “as if they had to carry out a raid against the mafia,” and added that their behavior “cannot go without adequate punishment.”
Opposition parties were quick to react to his speech.
“Maybe Berlusconi doesn’t realize that winning elections doesn’t mean you own the country. No leader can threaten to punish magistrates,” said Pier Ferdinando Casini, leader of the opposition Union of the Center party.
Donatella Ferranti, head of the justice commission for the opposition PD party, said “it’s squalid for the prime minister to defend himself in this way on television: The accusations against him are too serious.”
Allegations that Berlusconi hand-picked prostitutes for wild parties and paid to have sex with the underage girl, known as Ruby, caused shock waves in Italy and sparked fierce criticism from the Church and opposition parties.
Earlier on Wednesday, Milan’s prosecutors hit a hitch in their endeavor to prove Berlusconi hooked up with prostitutes, when a parliamentary committee stalled over authorizing the search warrant. The committee postponed a decision for at least a week after its rapporteur, a member of Berlusconi’s party, said he needed more time to read the prosecution’s 389-page document.
The prosecutors hope to search the offices of Berlusconi’s trusted sidekick Giuseppe Spinelli, who manages the prime minister’s Fininvest holdings.
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