{{Italian prosecutors called on Monday for a six-year jail sentence and a lifetime ban on holding public office for centre-right leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is charged with abuse of office and paying for sex with a minor.}}
The 76-year-old billionaire media tycoon and senator is accused of paying for sex with Karima El Mahroug, better known by her stage name “Ruby the Heartstealer”, when she was under 18, during the now notorious “bunga bunga” parties at his villa at Arcore near Milan in 2010.
However, prosecutors considered by far the more serious charge was that he abused the powers of his office during a separate incident by arranging for her to be released from police custody where she was being held on theft charges.
They requested five years imprisonment for that and a year for paying for sex with a minor. The verdict is expected on June 24.
But no final verdict will be enforced in either case until the appeals process, which can last for years, is exhausted.
Still, Berlusconi’s legal difficulties have created growing tension within Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s governing coalition, which includes the ex-premier’s center-right party.
“At Arcore there was a system of organized prostitution aimed at the satisfaction of the sexual pleasure of Silvio Berlusconi,” Milan chief prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said in a more than six-hour closing argument.
Boccassini said a small army of young women, many of them aspiring starlets, took part in the sex parties at Berlusconi’s residence, hoping to make it big on one of his television channels.
Those who stayed on after dinner were rewarded with cash, cars or free apartments, she said.
The prosecutor said mobile phone records showed that Ruby, a Moroccan runaway, had spent the night at Berlusconi’s home on at least seven occasions between February and May 2010.
“There is no doubt that Ruby had sex with the defendant, from whom she received benefits,” Boccassini said, adding that Berlusconi was well aware she was a minor.
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