Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s flamboyant former premier, was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from politics for life Monday for paying an underage prostitute for sex during infamous “bungabunga” parties and forcing public officials to cover it up.
It was the most damaging setback yet for the 76-year-old Berlusconi, who has been tried numerous times for his business dealings but never before for his personal conduct.
Still, he vowed that his days as a political force are not over. He has two levels of appeal — and his supporters quickly rallied around him.
The charges against the billionaire media mogul resulted from what became widely known in Italy as “bungabunga” parties hosted in 2010 by Berlusconi, then the sitting premier, at his villa near Milan, where he wined and dined beautiful young women.
Berlusconi's defence described the dinner parties as elegant soirees; prosecutors said they were sex-fuelled gatherings that women were paid to attend. The woman at the centre of the scandal, Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby, has described aspiring showgirls stripping provocatively for the then-Italian leader.
Both Berlusconi and el-Mahroug denied ever having sex, and el-Mahroug says she never worked as a prostitute. After the verdict, Berlusconi said in a message posted on Facebook that he believed he would be acquitted “because in the facts there is really no possibility to convict me.”
He called the sentence “incredible, of a violence never seen or heard before, to try to eliminate me from the political life of this country.” He pledged to “resist this persecution, because I am absolutely innocent, and I don’t want in any way to abandon my battle to make Italy a truly free and just country.”
The Milan criminal courts ruling was unexpectedly stiff, going further than the original charges and openly questioning whether many of the young women who testified in Berlusconissdefence had lied on the stand to protect him.
The panel of three judges, said Berlusconi went beyond using his influence to cover up his relationship with the then-17-year-old Moroccan, as originally charged.