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The Caligulan court of Silvio Berlusconi laid bare
At a certain point, a woman at one of Silvio Berlusconi’s parties says, “a girl started flashing her bottom and the evening took off”.
By Nick Squires, Rome 8:30PM GMT 20 Jan 2011
The Italian prime minister says he has nothing to be ashamed of, and that he has just been having fun. But the sheer mass of sordid details of his “bunga bunga” parties has now been revealed for the first time. The descriptions provided by prosecutors, investigating allegations of wrongdoing, prostitution and sex with an under age dancer, read like a bacchanalia.
Barbara Guerra (L) and Nicole Minetti
One opposition politician has already remarked this week: “Compared with Berlusconi, Caligula was a prude.” And so it might seem from the 389 pages of investigation and full gallery of skimpily-dressed showgirls named in prosecutors’ papers and assembled for the first time by The Daily Telegraph.
“After the meal,” a woman on one of hundreds of surveillance tapes says, “I heard some girls saying 'Let’s go down to the bunga bunga (room)’, a sort of disco with sofas, a dance pole, a kind of bar and bathrooms where the girls changed into revealing outfits.” Half-naked starlets are then said to have performed pole dances, put on stripteases and “wriggled up to the prime minister provocatively on the sofa, rubbing him up and letting him have a feel, indulging in mock lesbian kisses and rubbing against each other”. Another woman is said to be wandering around topless, repeatedly kissing Mr Berlusconi.
One showgirl was ordered to dress up for the 74-year-old prime minister as a nurse. “You’ll have to get a white coat, with nothing on underneath of course,” she was told. “Put on a stethoscope, a nurse’s uniform and white stay-up stockings. You know how much he likes that sort of thing, playing the patient.”
The women were described unflatteringly by one witness as “a bunch of idiots who dance like mongols”.
The frenzied organising of the prime minister’s courtiers is revealed too, putting together gatherings in Milan, Rome, and on Lake Maggiore. A faithful lieutenant is taped saying: “He’s on form and raring to go. He’s just called me and he is on top form. This is the right evening but who can I find?”
A scramble ensues, and women compete to be at the parties because Mr Berlusconi is viewed, according to one newspaper, as a “cash machine for which you need no PIN”.
Mr Berlusconi, for years viewed by his large bedrock of supporters as a lovable rogue doing only what they would do given the chance, instead has started to appear as a man treated with contempt by a rapacious circle of showgirls competing to squeeze cash from his deep pockets.
Karima El Mahroug, the girl at the centre of the under age sex allegations, all denied, is purported to have said that she didn’t care who Mr Berlusconi was, as long as “he’s showering me with money”. Another woman confided that if the prime minister reduced the frequency of his parties “we’d better start stealing stuff from the house”.
“Berlusconi has become a figure of fun,” said Klaus Davi, a media expert. “He comes across as an old fool at the mercy of these girls and their relatives who use him as a sort of cash machine.”
The wire taps paint an unedifying picture of parents encouraging their daughters to seduce the prime minister in return for money. The father of one woman says: “You’ve had one girl then another get ahead of you ... wake up!” The brother of another told her that Mr Berlusconi “could solve a lot of our problems, for mum, you and me”.
Mr Berlusconi’s counter-attack has ranged across his media empire, with the deployment of ministers, lawyers and other loyalists. “There’s been no graft, no incitement to prostitution, not even of a minor,” he told Italians himself in a second televised address in three days, and then ominously threatened prosecutors with “punishment”, accusing them of using wire taps against him and his guests as if they were gangsters.
Prosecutors’ behaviour, he said, “cannot go without adequate punishment”, and he pledged to rush through legislation to reform the judiciary and to prevent it from pursuing what he describes as politically-motivated witch hunts.
Public opinion is still holding up. Fifty per cent of those interviewed in an Ipsos poll thought the scandal would not affect Mr Berlusconi and could even boost his support in the event of an early election. But a slight majority, at 54 per cent, did not share the prime minister’s view that he was being unfairly persecuted.
In some quarters though, disgust is growing. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at the Vatican said the Holy See was “concerned” and urged “more solid morality.” And by Thursday evening, more than 2,000 women signed up to an online campaign titled “Basta!”, telling the prime minister that not all Italian women were prostitutes or showgirls.
At a certain point, a woman at one of Silvio Berlusconi’s parties says, “a girl started flashing her bottom and the evening took off”.
By Nick Squires, Rome 8:30PM GMT 20 Jan 2011
The Italian prime minister says he has nothing to be ashamed of, and that he has just been having fun. But the sheer mass of sordid details of his “bunga bunga” parties has now been revealed for the first time. The descriptions provided by prosecutors, investigating allegations of wrongdoing, prostitution and sex with an under age dancer, read like a bacchanalia.
Barbara Guerra (L) and Nicole Minetti
One opposition politician has already remarked this week: “Compared with Berlusconi, Caligula was a prude.” And so it might seem from the 389 pages of investigation and full gallery of skimpily-dressed showgirls named in prosecutors’ papers and assembled for the first time by The Daily Telegraph.
“After the meal,” a woman on one of hundreds of surveillance tapes says, “I heard some girls saying 'Let’s go down to the bunga bunga (room)’, a sort of disco with sofas, a dance pole, a kind of bar and bathrooms where the girls changed into revealing outfits.” Half-naked starlets are then said to have performed pole dances, put on stripteases and “wriggled up to the prime minister provocatively on the sofa, rubbing him up and letting him have a feel, indulging in mock lesbian kisses and rubbing against each other”. Another woman is said to be wandering around topless, repeatedly kissing Mr Berlusconi.
One showgirl was ordered to dress up for the 74-year-old prime minister as a nurse. “You’ll have to get a white coat, with nothing on underneath of course,” she was told. “Put on a stethoscope, a nurse’s uniform and white stay-up stockings. You know how much he likes that sort of thing, playing the patient.”
The women were described unflatteringly by one witness as “a bunch of idiots who dance like mongols”.
The frenzied organising of the prime minister’s courtiers is revealed too, putting together gatherings in Milan, Rome, and on Lake Maggiore. A faithful lieutenant is taped saying: “He’s on form and raring to go. He’s just called me and he is on top form. This is the right evening but who can I find?”
A scramble ensues, and women compete to be at the parties because Mr Berlusconi is viewed, according to one newspaper, as a “cash machine for which you need no PIN”.
Mr Berlusconi, for years viewed by his large bedrock of supporters as a lovable rogue doing only what they would do given the chance, instead has started to appear as a man treated with contempt by a rapacious circle of showgirls competing to squeeze cash from his deep pockets.
Karima El Mahroug, the girl at the centre of the under age sex allegations, all denied, is purported to have said that she didn’t care who Mr Berlusconi was, as long as “he’s showering me with money”. Another woman confided that if the prime minister reduced the frequency of his parties “we’d better start stealing stuff from the house”.
“Berlusconi has become a figure of fun,” said Klaus Davi, a media expert. “He comes across as an old fool at the mercy of these girls and their relatives who use him as a sort of cash machine.”
The wire taps paint an unedifying picture of parents encouraging their daughters to seduce the prime minister in return for money. The father of one woman says: “You’ve had one girl then another get ahead of you ... wake up!” The brother of another told her that Mr Berlusconi “could solve a lot of our problems, for mum, you and me”.
Mr Berlusconi’s counter-attack has ranged across his media empire, with the deployment of ministers, lawyers and other loyalists. “There’s been no graft, no incitement to prostitution, not even of a minor,” he told Italians himself in a second televised address in three days, and then ominously threatened prosecutors with “punishment”, accusing them of using wire taps against him and his guests as if they were gangsters.
Prosecutors’ behaviour, he said, “cannot go without adequate punishment”, and he pledged to rush through legislation to reform the judiciary and to prevent it from pursuing what he describes as politically-motivated witch hunts.
Public opinion is still holding up. Fifty per cent of those interviewed in an Ipsos poll thought the scandal would not affect Mr Berlusconi and could even boost his support in the event of an early election. But a slight majority, at 54 per cent, did not share the prime minister’s view that he was being unfairly persecuted.
In some quarters though, disgust is growing. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at the Vatican said the Holy See was “concerned” and urged “more solid morality.” And by Thursday evening, more than 2,000 women signed up to an online campaign titled “Basta!”, telling the prime minister that not all Italian women were prostitutes or showgirls.
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