Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was on Thursday braced for a tidal wave of new and reportedly compromising allegations about his private life as prosecutors confirmed the conclusion of an investigation into the supply of prostitutes and other women for parties at his Rome residence.
Court papers included a claim that the man who provided women for the parties had offered a well-known Italian actor the chance to present the annual San Remo song contest if she agreed to sleep with the 75-year-old prime minister. Manuela Arcuri, the star of a string of TV dramas, said she refused.
However, the prime minister’s -associates fear far more damaging material is contained in 1,000 or so wiretap transcripts made during the inquiry that could now leak to the media. The prime minister, who is not a suspect in the investigation, is already under huge pressure from several quarters.
Against a background of concern that Italy risks being dragged into a Greek-style debt crisis, rumors have been circulating that investigators recorded the prime minister as he made a grossly obscene reference to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The chancellor’s co-operation is vital to resolving the debt crisis on the eurozone’s southern flank.
Interviewed on radio, a former Berlusconi minister, Rocco -Buttiglione, said he did not know if the rumor was true, but if it were, “how could someone in a situation like that lead the government?” he suggested.
“Does he not realize that he is dramatically damaging Italy?” he added.
His was not the only voice calling on Berlusconi to step down.
In a front-page editorial, Italy’s top-selling daily, Corriere della Sera, said Italy was in “a situation at the limits of sustainability.”
And it asked: “How long it can go on without provoking serious damage?”
Police this month arrested the alleged purveyor of women for Berlusconi’s parties, Giampaolo Tarantini, and his wife, on suspicion of blackmailing the prime minister through an intermediary. In a deposition, Berlusconi insisted he made voluntary payments to the couple because they were in a “very difficult situation.”
The prosecutors believe more than 500,000 euros (US$689,650) was handed over.
According to leaked wiretap transcripts published yesterday, after it was reported that an investigation had been launched, Berlusconi told the intermediary he should stay abroad.
He reportedly added: “I will of course exonerate everyone.”
Prosecutors in Naples have said they believe the money was paid to prevent Tarantini contradicting the prime minister’s insistence that he was unaware the women, some of whom spent the night, were paid. The prosecutors want to question Berlusconi, but he has avoided an encounter. This week they announced that, if he continued dodging them, they would ask a judge to order the police to bring him in.
The prime minister’s vulnerability to blackmail is central to another evolving scandal. It was reported this week that a witness had told prosecutors in Milan that Berlusconi was, as he once claimed, in a long-term relationship.
The witness, a Moroccan belly dancer, named his live-in girlfriend as a Montenegrin, named Katarina. The weekly L’Espresso identified her as Katarina Knezevic, 20, a former “Miss Montenegro.”
It said she had a twin sister, and that in 2009 the pair, both of whom are models, had been photographed in Sardinia in the company of Madonna’s former husband, Guy Ritchie.
Berlusconi had mentioned an -unidentified lover to rebut claims of wild parties at his home outside Milan. However, the witness, who said she was a reluctant participant in “Bunga Bunga” sessions, confirmed the claims, adding that, jealous of the other women present, Knezevic had thrown herself down the stairs of the prime minister’s mansion.
The Moroccan woman also described how a female associate of the prime minister, who is now a member of the regional parliament of Lombardy, had been one of two who dressed as nuns before stripping down to G-strings while pole dancing.
The regional lawmaker denied the claim, but was embarrassed on Wednesday when she was photographed in the Milan fashion district while wearing a top emblazoned with the words: “I’m even better without the T-shirt.”
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